Usually in unprecedented situations in life, the learning curve is pretty steep for most individuals and groups. Little experience and context to draw upon, even for professionals. Some get annihilated. Extreme examples of risk management on the fly are 9/11 and the hospital meltdowns in parts of Europe with Covid 19.
With what happened in oil, I too was watching what was happening via Sierra charts and my price froze at one cent. I was not in a position, but knew there had to be some major chaos going on.
Hopefully everybody involved, from the CME, FCMs, brokers to traders learned some really important lessons about risk management, which is at the heart of trading, and paying sufficient attention to details! It is just a wonder it did not turn out even worse than it did. Good for IB for trying to straighten things out.
