Flash Crash Started With A Single Trade

pspr · Oct 1, 2010

A single trade by Waddell & Reed Financial Inc (WDR.N) helped spark the cascade of market selling on May 6, said a source familiar with regulators' report on the so-called flash crash.............

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN3013208820100930

GuyFawkes · Oct 1, 2010

What a joke.
Words fail me.

psytrade · Oct 1, 2010

Actually, it started with a big bang, 4 billion years ago. Maybe the SEC can send someone to investigate.

Tsing Tao · Oct 1, 2010

Quote from psytrade:

Actually, it started with a big bang, 4 billion years ago. Maybe the SEC can send someone to investigate.

they wont go back that far - porn wasnt invented yet.

pspr · Oct 1, 2010

Quote from psytrade:

Actually, it started with a big bang, 4 billion years ago. Maybe the SEC can send someone to investigate.

That was about 14 billion years ago.

nonlinear5 · Oct 1, 2010

Quote from GuyFawkes:

What a joke.
Words fail me.

What in particular do you find humorous about it? Waddell put 75,000 ES contracts for sale, which are worth approximately $4.5 billion. That's more than the gross domestic product of many countries. I am not surprised that it would cause a shock and disrupt the market.

S2007S · Oct 1, 2010

Are they still trying to figure this collapse out, who the fuck cares, move on already.

Whats done is done.

lindq · Oct 1, 2010

Quote from pspr:

That was about 14 billion years ago.

I was told it was 6,000. :mad:

heech · Oct 1, 2010

Quote from nonlinear5:

What in particular do you find humorous about it? Waddell put 75,000 ES contracts for sale, which are worth approximately $4.5 billion. That's more than the gross domestic product of many countries. I am not surprised that it would cause a shock and disrupt the market.

Uh, that represents approximately 3% of average daily volume in ES trades. (And on that particular day, probably far less than 3%.)

If that's an "explanation" for the flash crash... I'm stocking up on toilet paper and bottled water.

heech · Oct 1, 2010

Quote from S2007S:

Are they still trying to figure this collapse out, who the fuck cares, move on already.

Whats done is done.

Until the next time someone tries to sell 75,000 ES contracts?

Apparently Al-Qaeda doesn't need to hijack a plane, they just need a small firm with DMA access to the futures markets.