Jim in Anchorage Posted May 7, 2010 Share Posted May 7, 2010 Count your zeros No one was sure what happened, other than automated orders were activated by erroneous trades. One possibilility being investigated was that a trader accidentally placed an order to sell $16 billion, instead of $16 million, worth of futures, and that was enough to trigger sell orders across the market. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Booster4324 Posted May 7, 2010 Share Posted May 7, 2010 Count your zeros How about a confirmation checkbox? "Sales of this magnitude are for the world coming to an end. Are you sure the world is ending? If so, click yes." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
/dev/null Posted May 7, 2010 Share Posted May 7, 2010 How about a confirmation checkbox? "Sales of this magnitude are for the world coming to an end. Are you sure the world is ending? If so, click yes." Confirmation check box? But those traders want their gratification NOW!!! NOW!!! NOW!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KD in CA Posted May 7, 2010 Share Posted May 7, 2010 A typo causes a 10% drop in the market? Boy, that gives me a lot of confidence in our financial systems. We are doomed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HopsGuy Posted May 7, 2010 Share Posted May 7, 2010 A typo causes a 10% drop in the market? Boy, that gives me a lot of confidence in our financial systems. We are doomed. I once saw a guy lose $2.7 million in a couple of seconds. He put the decimal in the wrong place. It happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cugalabanza Posted May 7, 2010 Share Posted May 7, 2010 These !@#$s are playing silly silly games with our lives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Booster4324 Posted May 7, 2010 Share Posted May 7, 2010 Link The old system of floor traders matching buyers and sellers has been replaced by machines that process trades automatically, speeding the flow of buy and sell orders but also sometimes facilitating the kind of unexplained volatility that roiled markets Thursday. “We have a market that responds in milliseconds, but the humans monitoring respond in minutes, and unfortunately billions of dollars of damage can occur in the meantime,” said James Angel, a professor of finance at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. I believe this is what Tom was referring to yesterday. So a mistake and Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrDawkinstein Posted May 7, 2010 Share Posted May 7, 2010 i love this clip of Jim Cramer knowing exactly what happened and telling people to buy now, while the 2 chicken-littles next to him are trying to make a story about the market crashing... "the machine is obviously broken" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CountDorkula Posted May 7, 2010 Share Posted May 7, 2010 I would have loved to have been in that financial advisors room when this happened. Seriously though how do you eff up that bad $16,000,000.00 $16,000,000,000.00 Something does not look right there.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taterhill Posted May 7, 2010 Share Posted May 7, 2010 im calling shenigans on this mistrade.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eSJayDee Posted May 7, 2010 Share Posted May 7, 2010 Seriously though how do you eff up that bad $16,000,000.00 $16,000,000,000.00 I don't know how it comes into play w/ stocks & w/ most/all of trades done electronically especially, but w/ currencies it's entirely possible or at least it was in the "old days". 1st, you have the problem that in the UK, they use Billion to represent what us Americans call Million (10^6). What we call Billion, they call Milyard. When you trade currencies interbank, 10^6 is understood, ie not mentioned (eg: "What's the level on 8 Euros" means you're interested in either buying or selling 8*10^6 Euros (w/ US$)). If someone erroneously said Million, depending on who you're talking to, you might well be obligated to a trade 1000x more than you intended. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CountDorkula Posted May 7, 2010 Share Posted May 7, 2010 I don't know how it comes into play w/ stocks & w/ most/all of trades done electronically especially, but w/ currencies it's entirely possible or at least it was in the "old days". 1st, you have the problem that in the UK, they use Billion to represent what us Americans call Million (10^6). What we call Billion, they call Milyard. When you trade currencies interbank, 10^6 is understood, ie not mentioned (eg: "What's the level on 8 Euros" means you're interested in either buying or selling 8*10^6 Euros (w/ US$)). If someone erroneously said Million, depending on who you're talking to, you might well be obligated to a trade 1000x more than you intended. Sure go ahead prove my point to be a non factor... Lets just hope it was an international trade and not just hey Joe call Chris, see if he wants to buy or sell... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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