I think you're referring to the following quote : "As part of that process, the NYSE held on to "buy" orders, in the hopes that it could gather enough of them t

I think you're referring to the following quote : "As part of that process, the NYSE held on to "buy" orders, in the hopes that it could gather enough of them to meet the selling demand. "Sell" orders that came to the NYSE were rerouted to other exchanges, which were not required to slow trading. Those other exchanges were soon overflowing with sell orders and didn't have enough buy orders to meet them, leading to the rapid decline in prices." I've spoken to a recently retired HF trader about it to verify that it seems wrong and he says that the way that quote is written it doesn't make sense.