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There 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 rumor

by sonnym 16y ago

There 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 ago
For a definition of the Internet please see above^
migpwr 16y ago
Try the newspaper. What exactly do you expect on an open forum?
- stanleydrew 16y ago
  normally 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 ago
Well, 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...
- lotharbot 16y ago
  From what I've read, one key issue was that some exchanges stopped trading or updating certain prices for a few minutes, which led to other exchanges making trades in isolation instead of tying them into the larger market. With just a few more "sell at any price" than "buy at a reasonable price" orders for a given stock on a given exchange, and with no tie-in to other buy orders from other places, the "buy at a ridiculously low price" orders that many traders leave in place just to take advantage of algorithmic glitches of this nature were triggered. It's like being at a car auction with a robot auctioneer and putting in a one-penny starting bid, and then the robot's sensors malfunction so he can't see any more bids. He'll declare you the auction winner, but that result doesn't reflect the car's actual value and will almost definitely be canceled.
  - rdtsc 16y ago
    > result doesn't reflect the car's actual value and will almost definitely be canceled. Unless the value of the car is defined as whatever someone on NYSE or NASDAQ is willing to pay for it. As the result of this there were some losers and some winners. Losers will want the trades reversed, winners won't. Reversal of trades could start a dangerous trend. Who gets to decide which trades get reversed? I wonder if many HFT firms will start to incorporate such kind of behavior into their trading model, so we'll see more of these "accidents" in the future.
    - lotharbot 16y ago
      The way the stock exchanges are set up, they can cancel trades that are considered "erroneous". It's in the contract, and it has been done before. Either party can trigger a mediation attempt [1], but in this case the exchange itself determined that they made a mistake in generating trades that shouldn't have actually happened and was only triggered by a glitch in the system, and made a blanket declaration. Since any trade on their system is actually just a contract to exchange the stock in the next 3 days, they don't have to take back any stock, they just have to declare the contract as invalid. Last I heard, the Nasdaq was going to cancel any trades that were during the glitchy time window and were more than 60% away from a baseline price (an amount people were "willing to pay for it" when the system wasn't glitching). I don't know how they came up with the number, nor how deeply the SEC and other agencies were involved in setting it. There will still be plenty of winners and losers coming out of this, just not the ones who thought they bought or sold Accenture at a penny. I'm not saying this is a "good" fix, but it is well within the Nasdaq's authority. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1325574 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1325574 - notes that broken trades are fairly common, and that they're usually quickly mediated
jfornear 16y ago
I think the speculations and rumors are very interesting and relevant to learning more about how the market works (or doesn't work), a topic that no one is ever going to have enough "facts" to fully understand.
- rdtsc 16y ago
  The market broke today. However, as you pointed out, the _way_ it broke and the way it was fixed has been observed by all. So everyone just learned a new piece of information about the market behavior. This kind of behavior will certainly end up being encoded into the HFT models -- both as a way to react to it, and (perhaps what is terrifying), as a way to trigger it. I am afraid we might seeing these kind of things more often.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
jimmyrcom 16y ago
ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED IS THIS NOT WHY YOU ARE HERE? Personally I checked only to see everyones noodles flailing.

by sonnym 16y ago

supaflyhigh 16y ago

For a definition of the Internet please see above^

migpwr 16y ago

Try the newspaper. What exactly do you expect on an open forum?

stanleydrew 16y ago
normally 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 ago

Well, 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...

lotharbot 16y ago
From what I've read, one key issue was that some exchanges stopped trading or updating certain prices for a few minutes, which led to other exchanges making trades in isolation instead of tying them into the larger market. With just a few more "sell at any price" than "buy at a reasonable price" orders for a given stock on a given exchange, and with no tie-in to other buy orders from other places, the "buy at a ridiculously low price" orders that many traders leave in place just to take advantage of algorithmic glitches of this nature were triggered. It's like being at a car auction with a robot auctioneer and putting in a one-penny starting bid, and then the robot's sensors malfunction so he can't see any more bids. He'll declare you the auction winner, but that result doesn't reflect the car's actual value and will almost definitely be canceled.
- rdtsc 16y ago
  > result doesn't reflect the car's actual value and will almost definitely be canceled. Unless the value of the car is defined as whatever someone on NYSE or NASDAQ is willing to pay for it. As the result of this there were some losers and some winners. Losers will want the trades reversed, winners won't. Reversal of trades could start a dangerous trend. Who gets to decide which trades get reversed? I wonder if many HFT firms will start to incorporate such kind of behavior into their trading model, so we'll see more of these "accidents" in the future.
  - lotharbot 16y ago
    The way the stock exchanges are set up, they can cancel trades that are considered "erroneous". It's in the contract, and it has been done before. Either party can trigger a mediation attempt [1], but in this case the exchange itself determined that they made a mistake in generating trades that shouldn't have actually happened and was only triggered by a glitch in the system, and made a blanket declaration. Since any trade on their system is actually just a contract to exchange the stock in the next 3 days, they don't have to take back any stock, they just have to declare the contract as invalid. Last I heard, the Nasdaq was going to cancel any trades that were during the glitchy time window and were more than 60% away from a baseline price (an amount people were "willing to pay for it" when the system wasn't glitching). I don't know how they came up with the number, nor how deeply the SEC and other agencies were involved in setting it. There will still be plenty of winners and losers coming out of this, just not the ones who thought they bought or sold Accenture at a penny. I'm not saying this is a "good" fix, but it is well within the Nasdaq's authority. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1325574 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1325574 - notes that broken trades are fairly common, and that they're usually quickly mediated

jfornear 16y ago

I think the speculations and rumors are very interesting and relevant to learning more about how the market works (or doesn't work), a topic that no one is ever going to have enough "facts" to fully understand.

rdtsc 16y ago
The market broke today. However, as you pointed out, the _way_ it broke and the way it was fixed has been observed by all. So everyone just learned a new piece of information about the market behavior. This kind of behavior will certainly end up being encoded into the HFT models -- both as a way to react to it, and (perhaps what is terrifying), as a way to trigger it. I am afraid we might seeing these kind of things more often.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

jimmyrcom 16y ago

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED IS THIS NOT WHY YOU ARE HERE? Personally I checked only to see everyones noodles flailing.