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Today the Dow dropped 1000 points in about ten minutes.
- mnemonicsloth 16y agoHere's Apple losing more than 20% of its value http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=AAPL http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=AAPL Nobody knows why it's happening. They're talking about a "fat finger mistake" on CNBC. Some of these people look pretty scared.
- mbreese 16y agoApple's losses are likely just in line with the market, but it could be the AT&T extension. The market would like to see iPhones on Verizon sooner rather than later.
- sabat 16y agoMany iPhone customers would like to see iPhones on Verizon sooner than later. Including this one.
- potatolicious 16y agoI hate AT&T with a raging passion. My iPhone's data plan is in reality 40% of the data plan. The other 60% of the time my phone doesn't think I'm on the internet even though I have full bars and the 3G icon.
- sabat 16y agoI just started a new contract, and I'm on CalTrain the other day, minding my own business, when this guy next to me has two calls drop on him in a row. He has an iPhone. He mutters, "Gawd, AT&T sucks," and everyone around laughs. It's now conventional wisdom that AT&T has awful cell coverage. It's especially bad in the Bay Area, but it's bad everywhere. I can't wait to leave.
- potatolicious 16y agoI think we need a new term other than "coverage". In the old days, "bad coverage" means a place where there aren't enough cell towers around, where you're not getting any bars. Nowadays, even when you're downtown, surrounded by farms of cell towers, getting full bars, your phone will still magically not work.
- sp332 16y agoInsufficient capacity? Bad cell tower hand offs?
- pyre 16y agoVerizon is no saint either. The only service I would purchase from Verizon is FIOS (and maybe cable).
- sabat 16y agoI've heard it has its problems, but I cannot express to you how much worse AT&T is.
- theli0nheart 16y agoKicking myself right now for not putting a limit order to sell puts I bought a couple of weeks ago...could've had a nice long vacation :)
- amvp 16y agoIs there any discussion anywhere about what happened?
- tptacek 16y agoWorries of Greek sovereign default.
- abstractbill 16y agoSeems like a very sudden amount of worry for something everyone has known about for a long time. Did an actual event trigger this?
- drawkbox 16y agoMost likely it was all algorithms. You'll note it was a slow downtrend then it hit a window that triggered massive selloff cascade. When it hit the bottom from February the other algorithms were set to buy. I am betting few humans got through an individual order during this. It was mostly software. This is what cause the crash in the eighties, we have some fail-safes in place to slow it but most trading is done by tuned algorithms during stuff like this. In fact, the PPT (Plunge Protection Team) might have kicked in...
- nailer 16y agoI wonder whether a large enough entity could actually deliberately hold and then suddenly sell enough of an instrument they believed to be undervalued, just to ensure their competitors stop losses executed, then immediately buy back the entire market for the instrument.
- eru 16y agoYou can try. But the strategy is very risky. It's similar to Cornering a market (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornering_the_market http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornering_the_market), but backwards--i.e. short instead of long. If you can pull it off, you have earned your profit.
- pw0ncakes 16y agoMisleading title. The drop occurred over about 10 minutes, and has partially reversed. As of 3:06 it's -400 for the day. The VIX is also up into the high-30s. Not to say this isn't August 6, 2007 or September 12, 2008. It may well be.
- mnemonicsloth 16y agoYou're absolutely right. I was listening to two different people at the same time, and I'm away from my real-time charting program so I coudln't check. I just changed the title to reflect. Holy Shit. Accenture dropped from $40 to $0.01, and now it's back in the high $30s.
- jasonlbaptiste 16y agocan anyone explain how accenture just went to a value of a penny even if it was momentary?
- jey 16y agoAs I understand it, all it takes is one share to have been sold at that price. Probably indicates someone having a "sell n shares at any price" order where n > buy orders at that moment..? Regardless of the details, this is an example of how markets aren't perfectly efficient.
- yan 16y agoI don't think anyone claims the markets are 'perfectly' efficient. Even the people that believe they are efficient and choose to participate argue that they are exploiting the inefficiencies.
- orblivion 16y agoFurthermore the real question is, could the market possibly be made more efficient if some "expert" were there deciding when a trade was a bad idea?
- jodrellblank 16y agoHow bad is that? From the graph it's back to levels of early February, but is this a curiosity, a drama, a panic or a catastrophe?
- borism 16y agopanic
- pw0ncakes 16y agoEarly plunge: panic. Current status: probably a fairly rational reflection of the badness of the situation (which is not new, and although serious, probably not catastrophic).
- chasingsparks 16y agoThis is a genuine panic -- probably the start of pretty dramatic decline. Sovereign debt is going to be the new contagion. If the contagion spreads, the gains to consumption over the past year could be demolished. These gains were bought at the price of government stimulus -- i.e. soverign debt. Businesses are not yet stable enough to weather another downturn soundly; governments are already grossly over-extended. Oh, happy days.
- apphacker 16y ago"We should be down big today, but not 1,000 points. This is an equity market structure issue, there's no major problem going on." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10101581.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10101581.stm Doesn't sound like a panic to me.
- chasingsparks 16y agoYea, it's appearing more and more like a glitch, human, structural, or otherwise. However, the sellers were real -- and increasing. I think there is a danger that people will see it as only a glitch and not the beginnings of trouble. The glitch might mask the true sentiment.
- qeorge 16y agoMore information: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/business/07markets.html?hp http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/business/07markets.html?hp
- ElliotH 16y agoBBC News has this on the subject: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/10101581.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/10101581.stm Seems to be about Greece.
- tptacek 16y agoGreece may default. Sovereign default, lagging the initial market crash by a couple years, was a feature of the Great Depression, so there's an emotional component. Greece's economy may not be compatible with the Eurozone; because they can't control their money supply, they can't make their exports competitive. So they may eventually jettison the Euro. There's concerns that Portugal and Spain could follow. So then there's also drama with the currency market. There are 100 people on HN that know this stuff better than I do, but maybe by babbling I'll irritate one of them enough to explain.
- baguasquirrel 16y agoI don't think I'm one of those 100 people, but from what I've been reading, many European banks (particularly the German, French and British banks) have more exposure to Greek, Portuguese and Spanish debt than they ought to. If any of those countries (Spain in particular) were to default, the losses at the big banks would be so great that people may want to pull their money out for now, just in case. And you know what happens next.
- rjett 16y agohttp://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/02/weekinreview/02marsh.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/02/weekinreview/0...
- ErrantX 16y agoThe other big issue that is causing concern is that there is a very volatile populace in Greece. There have already been riots/protest over the proposed cuts... A major problem is that the Euro covers a very wide and very variable region; some economies are on the tipping point already. (and I am so glad we (UK) didn't jump into bed with the Euro now! :D)
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- boredguy8 16y agoI have a question as a complete outsider: how much of what's happening is being driven directly by human-driven transaction and how much is automated computer-driven trading? (Yes, I understand these are hazy terms.) And, perhaps more fundamentally: how much of market volatility is the consequence of automated decision making? It seems, again naivete is at play here, but it seems like that could be a pretty unstable system. I guess I think of it like this: the U.S. utilizes Permissive Action Links and other security measures to provide for launch security. Given the centrality of the economy (though not wanting to overstate it), it seems like a large-scale mistake in some models could cause misfiring in ways we wouldn't want but that a human agent could (theoretically) prevent.
- alttab 16y agoConservative estimates suggest more than half. They are "market makers" which allow liquidity on demand. At least that's what these HFTs are selling. Look at market trading volume over the last 15 years.
- tortilla 16y agohttp://finance.yahoo.com/ http://finance.yahoo.com/ is down.
- jfornear 16y agohttp://bloomberg.com http://bloomberg.com is down too.
- spif 16y agoGoogle Finance is working nicely: http://www.google.com/finance?q=INDEXDJX:.DJI http://www.google.com/finance?q=INDEXDJX:.DJI
- wdewind 16y agoit wasnt for a few minutes there tho. got a few 500 errors and a few partially loaded pages for 2 or 3 minute stretch
- loire280 16y agoThe one site I'm getting reliably is WSJ.com (I'm a subscriber). May be the paywall-deterrent-effect. Some of their data got pretty stale (30min+), but that's probably because things are down across the entire market foodchain.
- mbreese 16y agohttp://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100506-717535.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100506-717535.html?mod... This seems to have been expected given the European markets today. It's all over concern for Greek default. Which makes Spain and Portugal up next, which is the bigger concern since they are a larger part of the Euro-zone economy. One benefit of this all (to Americans), is that the dollar has gotten stronger against the Euro, so while the markets are losing ground, the dollar can buy more from Europe.
- chc 16y agoDid Greece just suddenly get in the hole? This drop was extremely sudden. It seems odd for such a seeming non-event as "Greece is still in trouble."
- jfoutz 16y agoTypo. google for proctor and gamble fat finger.
- aaronbrethorst 16y agoI just did. You're the top result on Google. Mind giving a little more background? :)
- jbooth 16y agoWow. 28 minutes from comment to live on Google.
- eli 16y agohttp://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2010/05/06/procter-gamble-something-strange-was-going-on/ http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2010/05/06/procter-gamble-so...
- pyre 16y agohttp://www.businessinsider.com/cnbc-a-citigroup-trader-made-the-big-fat-finger-error-2010-5 http://www.businessinsider.com/cnbc-a-citigroup-trader-made-...
- earle 16y agoThank program trading for this one fellas! People lost their high frequency trading shirts on that move. Some happy people in the futures market who bought the effects at < 10k!
- nostromo 16y agoIsn't this backward? From what I can tell the HFTs may have pushed down the price quickly, only to buy in and take part in the correction. Similar to Magnatar, this is the "lose a little money to make a lot more" strategy.
- stretchwithme 16y agoIf we had papered over our economic problems, I could see this drop as justified. but we've paid people to buy houses, cars and appliances. And we've given billions to banks so they can lend it back to the government at a tidy no-risk profit. So, this correction makes no sense. The stock market should be zooming to the moon.
- rrhyne 16y agoI could also see this justified if we had completely failed to bring the lenders, lendees, brokers, appraisers and CDS originators who committed massive fraud to justice. So this makes no sense to me either. :D
- stretchwithme 16y agoAnd all the Congressman and Federal Reserve who created the housing bubble in the first place. Thank god they've fired and prosecuted. Those who exploited the bubble will always be ready to exploit government foolishness, so a new crop will sprout overnight.
- px 16y agoAccenture (ACN) went from $40 to $.01 and back up to $40. http://www.google.com/finance?q=acn http://www.google.com/finance?q=acn
- chc 16y agoGood lord, if you'd put $10 into that during the panic, you'd have $40000 now.
- natrius 16y agoSomeone has to actually sell you shares at that price for that to happen. It was likely a data error. No one is going to sell Accenture shares for a penny.
- cperciva 16y agoIt was likely a data error. No one is going to sell Accenture shares for a penny. Or a bit more precisely: Someone might have entered a big sell order at $0.01/share by mistake, but when this happens the stock exchanges usually undo those trades, so even if you think you bought ACN for $0.01/share, you probably didn't.
- omellet 16y agoIt's very likely that trade got busted almost immediately.
- dhyasama 16y agoWhen I worked at an HFT shop broken trades were the bain of our existence. We had parameters to screen for trades that would probably be broken, but sometimes they would be broken outside of those. The way it works is either party to a trade can request the trade be broken, it goes to a mediator, and both sides make there case. It usually only takes a few minutes, but you can lose a bundle in that time especially if you were selling as the price is dropping, think you're flat only to have your sale broken.
- karzeem 16y agoIf you wanted to position yourself to make a lot of money if Greece defaults, what would you do?
- maukdaddy 16y agoLamb futures.
- dschobel 16y agowell considering the debt now has junk status you'd just buy it at pennies on the dollar (like the people buying the bad mortgages) and hope the austerity measures pass and they get their shit together.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- nkassis 16y agoshort British banks? just repeating what I saw online ;p
- drsnyder 16y agoI've heard some suggest that one play would be to buy gold in euros.
- joubert 16y agoGerman bonds
- CWuestefeld 16y agoIsn't that backwards? Wouldn't a Greek default hurt German banks? Is there something I'm not seeing about how that would affect the issuers of German bonds?
- alphaBetaGamma 16y agoYou buy CDS's on greek debt. But this is not available to retail investors.
- nickpp 16y agoThey say it's because of Greece, but I think this may be Romania. Their government JUST announced drastic measures to avoid becoming next Greece. Which means the debt issues are spreading in Europe... Not that US is in a much better position...
- Zev 16y agoRomania isn't exactly a surprise either. A lot of Eastern Europe is in pretty bad shape. With Romania, their GDP dropped by approximately 20%, or $40 billion in in 2008/2009. Its only expected to go up by about $7 billion or so in 2009/2010[1]. I wouldn't consider myself an expert on this, but, my understanding is that a lot of the economic decline is due to a decline in tourism to Romania (well, to Eastern Europe in general, not just Romania) in the past year or two. And hotels/restaurants/etc account for ~20% of Romania's GDP, IIRC. And the US is in a much better position than most of the world. We had what? Two quarters of negative growth of -2 or -3% at most before we're back in the plus? Compare that to countries that have been in double digit negatives for multiple quarters in a row. The primary country that I'm really worried about in Eastern Europe is Bosnia-Herzegovina. Three ethnic groups that have distinct political parties and two of the three don't recognize the third. New government every few months and very little is done. Low GDP to start with, and its gone down even more in the past year or two. Its not too far fetched to imagine a situation like Kosovo in the 90's breaking out again.. [1] http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2010/01/weodata/weorept.aspx?sy=2000&ey=2010&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&pr1.x=74&pr1.y=13&c=968&s=NGDPD&grp=0&a= http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2010/01/weodata/weor...
- batasrki 16y agoFun, especially since Bosnia was in a war not too long ago. Thankfully, all of my family is out of that godforsaken country.
- joubert 16y agoChaos - opportunity
- startuprules 16y agoI sincerely hope nobody in this forum still have stocks in their 401K portfolio. Better yet, withdraw your 401K altogether. Take control of your money in this 'interesting' times.
- laut 16y agoACN fell from about $40 to $0.01 and came back. 4000x or 400000% Buying a few thousand $ worth at a penny wouldn't have been a bad trade. http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ACN http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ACN EDIT: Such as trade would most likely be cancelled though.
- far33d 16y agoThis makes me think that I should just place limit orders for every S+P 500 company at $.10. Chances are the orders will never be filled but if this happens again I'll get rich.
- wr1472 16y agoSounds like Nassim Taleb's Black Swan theory. I wonder if he made any money out of it at his Empirica hedge fund?
- pchristensen 16y agoIIRC, he ran out of money before the crash hit. If he had more capital, he would have cleaned up.
- dkimball 16y agoAs the old saying goes, "The market can stay irrational for longer than you can stay solvent"...
- obsaysditto 16y agothe price of euro also fell to 1.25USD http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert.cgi?Amount=1&From=EUR&To=USD http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert.cgi?Amount=1&From=EUR&...
- Groxx 16y agoWtf stock-market-people. Panic causing reaction causing panic isn't helping anything. Chill for a few seconds.
- sophacles 16y agoThat would be rational behaviour. The market does not exist on rational behaviour. The Austrians just spread that rumor to take advantage of the suckers who believe it.
- CWuestefeld 16y agoOf course. In this enlightened age we know that it's all driven by animal spirits.
- ramchip 16y ago"Panic" gives this image of people running around and pulling their hair, but it's probably just a combination of computer algorithms hitting their threshold, and people adapting to fresh news to maximize their gain. I don't think people are genuinely panicked.
- fretlessjazz 16y agofinance.yahoo.com = down<br /> bloomberg.com = down<br /> cnbc.com = realtime quote problems<br /> This is some serious load...
- joe-mccann 16y agoWelcome to the world of High Frequency/Algorithmic trading. In this case, essentially every person that had a "stop loss" order was just hunted down by a wave of HFT programs and all those stop loss orders were triggered, which send "market orders" which means, fill my order at the current market price. When everyone does this at the same time, there are more sellers than buyers so prices drop dramatically. However, this presents an opportunity for HFT programs especially when they have similar strategies, meaning they all are doing the same thing, pushing the market in the same direction. Now, the HFT programs forced people to get stopped out, then they bid the market up and buy, which pushes it right back to the prior level. Take a look at AAPL, RIMM, GOOG, SPY, etc. and you'll see it is all the same pattern.
- spif 16y agoVery interesting, so does that mean all those HFT programs managed to make/lose money or pretty much break even?
- alttab 16y agoI interviewed at a HFT once - and one of the things that stuck out to me was that one of the guys there said "its doesn't matter which direction the market moves, just that it moves." HFT computers identify "direct arbitrage," and make a profit off of someone else's loss.
- joe-mccann 16y ago
- CoachRufus87 16y agoemotions, algorithms, & unknowns == why I don't invest in the stock market
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- fretlessjazz 16y agoFrom cnbc.com: Trading Error at Major Firm Blamed for Market Plunge: Sources (Story Developing)
- ojbyrne 16y agoLooks like its a glitch. money.cnn.com says "Faulty Proctor & Gamble quotes" were the cause.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- hockeybias 16y agoSecond Rumor: Per http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/05/market-update.html http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/05/market-update.html "...the second is that Euro banks are having a liquidity problem of some sort."
- sonnym 16y agoThere are far too many speculative comments on this story. I normally find the comments on HN to be well thought and reasoned - not rapid posting of wild rumors that are currently prevalent. Perhaps people should wait until the facts emerge before posting more stories filled with inaccurate information.
- supaflyhigh 16y agoFor a definition of the Internet please see above^
- migpwr 16y agoTry the newspaper. What exactly do you expect on an open forum?
- stanleydrew 16y agonormally I find the comments on HN to be well thought and reasoned... I believe he made clear what he expects on this forum.
- jsm386 16y agoWell, here's a statement from the NYSE: "There were a number of erroneous trades," said NYSE spokesman Rich Adamonis."Our guys just told me Nasdaq is investigating the erroneous trades. What happened today in P&G for instance, the bad print was on Nasdaq, not here," he said, referring to a 37 percent plunge in Procter & Gamble Co. The Nasdaq said it is investigating the plunge. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aQKbTm0qCY0c&pos=1 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aQKb... And more - including canceled trades of Accenture: Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. said it’s investigating potentially erroneous trades involving multiple securities between 2:40 p.m. and 3 p.m. New York time, when the U.S. stock market tumbled. Trades in Accenture Plc that drove the second-largest technology consulting company’s stock price down more than 99 percent to a penny were canceled by the CBOE Stock Exchange, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. A total of 19 trades of 100 shares each were executed at 1 cent in seven seconds from 2:47 p.m. to 2:48 p.m. in New York, a minute after the Dow average plunged by the most since the market crash of 1987, the data showed. Eighteen of the trades were executed on the CBOE Stock Exchange and were canceled. The first trade that sent Accenture to a penny was executed on the Nasdaq Stock Market. That transaction has yet to be canceled, the data showed. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a3tiFiVZLZwg&pos=1 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a3ti...
- jrockway 16y agoWhoops, meant to run that script on the dev instance.
- chaosmachine 16y agoMy favorite quote, so far: "I think the machines just took over," said Charlie Smith, chief investment officer at Fort Pitt Capital Group. "There's not a lot of human interaction. We've known that automated trading can run away from you, and I think that's what we saw happen today." Welcome to the future?
- stretchwithme 16y agothats why you want to be careful about letting the market set your selling price.
- mark_l_watson 16y agoDow Jones Industrial average down 3.20% S&P 500 down 3.24% So, the Dow ended down about 350 points for the entire day. This happens sometimes. The world economy could crash triggered by problems in Greece, Spain, etc. Or, we could continue to be fine for decades. I think that it is impossible to predict.
- Keyframe 16y agoI lost 1200$ today, yaay. edit: I lost 1200$ due to this situation today AND got downvoted for it! Double the hurt.
- krishna2 16y agoSorry to hear that and not to be insensitive - but I think that number is probably a rounding-error to a good chunk of traders out there! Imagine all those who had margin accounts and got wiped!
- Keyframe 16y agoI know, you're not being insensitive. :) I'm not making a fuss about it though, it was a part of the risk anyways and it was an experiment in the spot market. I built that 1200$ out of 200$ of initiation cash, so there actually is little to no damage anyways. But you bring a valid and disturbing point, there are a lot of folks out there now that lost tons of money and got margin called - most of them probably over leveraged, not a pretty sight.
- kurumo 16y agoThis is actually very interesting. It may have been led by China. Chinese market fell on Monday due to reserve requirements change (though the slow decline actually started quite a bit earlier), and it was widely reported on Monday night. Commodities followed on Chinese news and European debt on Tuesday; Europe continued falling on Wednesday on Greece and Portugal speculation, then this went around the world one more time and was reported at about 3am today (emerging markets decline), and then later in the day as decline continued. Speculation on European state debt compounded the issue (witness the Spain rumours). Then at 13:10pm El Erian was reported to have said that there is a possibility that European banks will stop lending, at which point the US markets hiccuped and went into accelerating decline (look at Russel, SPX and Dow from noon onward). I will try to add links when I get home later. Clearly it was much more complicated than this, but this pattern of falling dominoes going around the world is at least suggestive. Update: China reserve requirements: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-04/china-s-stocks-drop-to-7-month-low-as-banks-increase-reserves.html http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-04/china-s-stocks-d... Commodities, etc.: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jpti0ArQElljT1JkaSIQPG8m530AD9FG8AKG0 http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jpti0ArQEl... http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/markets/global-markets-rout-hits-australia/story-e6frg916-1225862463688 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/markets/global-mark... http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-06/corn-soybeans-wheat-fall-as-slowing-economy-may-curb-demand.html http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-06/corn-soybeans-wh... Emerging markets: http://www.livemint.com/2010/05/04214121/The-Chinese-contagion.html http://www.livemint.com/2010/05/04214121/The-Chinese-contagi... http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100505-713490.html?mod=WSJ_World_MIDDLEHeadlinesAmericas http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100505-713490.html?mod... El Erian - the best I can find is this. The lending comment was attributed to him when I saw it, but here it is a "trader speaking on condition of anonimity". http://www.cnbc.com/id/36992469 http://www.cnbc.com/id/36992469
- BrentRitterbeck 16y agoI think people may be missing the bigger picture. While this may certainly be the result of a trade error (NB: This has yet to be confirmed), what we did see is a precursor to what may happen should another of the dominoes fall over in Europe. There are now rumors that Italy may be headed for a downgrade: http://www.cnbc.com/id/36986983 http://www.cnbc.com/id/36986983 If less-than cooler heads prevail, an actual economic event could trigger the exact same response we saw today.
- krishna2 16y agoThe best commentary I have read so far is from Phil's stock world: This is everything that is wrong with program trading in a nutshell and I am telling you that this was a multi-billion dollar crime. Someone "fat-fingered" Billions of shares instead of millions and that’s all it takes to send the markets down 10% in one day and the only reason trading didn’t shut down was because Mr. Fat Finger just so happened to make his mistake minutes after the usual trading brakes come off at 2:30. What a friggin coincidence, right? Well, bad luck to all who got wiped out and what a funny stroke of luck for those with multi-billion dollar shorts (including us fortunately so we shouldn’t complain too loudly). It’s amazing what "THEY" get away with right in front of us, in broad daylight….
- LoudRoar 16y agoEveryone Chillax! Here is the story: Today was a big bill auction day. Ok. Just chill out for a minute and let me explain. China ain't no fool. These erroneous trades were made 10 minutes prior to a bill auction. This is just to make sure that selling these bills will get a high return and low rate. It was a great time to sell at the stroke of noon. Chillax.
- steveplace 16y agoFunny, I was doing live market commentary on stocktwits when this happened. It's pretty interesting to see how I reacted to the voodoo. One point: it's my belief that if we didn't have HFT and the quants, this would have been a move like 1987.
- ck2 16y agoif (confirm('You entered BILLIONS did you mean MILLIONS?')) {return false;} problem solved.
- anthonyb 16y agoUntil all of your traders get used to pressing 'yes' on your annoying dialog box, at which point you're back to square one.
- joelhaus 16y agoGoogle is secretive about its search algorithm to prevent people from gaming the system; wondering if the major stock exchanges do something similar... Can anyone explain (and possibly cite sources) what the price represents that is displayed when you obtain a stock quote directly from one of the major exchanges? Is it: A) The highest unfilled bid B) The lowest unfilled ask C) The most recent filled trade D) The most recent trade at some min. % of float E) Some combination of the above F) Other: _______________________ This is a teachable moment and would go a long way towards helping us understand what happened. On the surface, most of these pricing models seem incredibly easy to game. Bonus; are other quote sources priced using alternative methods? If so, please explain.
- ewjordan 16y agoYou should be able to get any of this information - a good broker will always show you a), b), and c), and using tick-by-tick data in most markets you can figure out d). Not so much secrecy; however, that doesn't mean there aren't errors, and it now sounds like today there were a few coming through NASDAQ re: Proctor and Gamble, which made the brief decline appear a lot more catastrophic than it actually was.
- joelhaus 16y agoThanks, I understand that this information is available, but I wonder what the quoted price reflects when you go to Yahoo Finance, et. al.. I've asked this to my finance professor and professionals; there seems to be little/no consensus on it. There must be arbitrage opportunities here... maybe that is what HFT are doing? According to the NYSE, this was purely the result of an economic supply-demand mismatch. I think the result of this, is the realization that the quoted price can be a poor (exploitable) indication of an equity's value at any given moment.
- drawkbox 16y agoWouldn't it be sad/funny if this was just a hack by some dude messing around with Python and accidentally the whole stock market War Games style.
- varjag 16y agoWhen they talk about "the biggest crash since 1987", do they mean in absolute points, or scaled to overall DOW magnitude?
- what 16y agoThis was operator error right? Hit the "000" button one too many times on that sell.