The "flash crash" which sent the US stock market down 9 per cent in 20 minutes on 6 May began in the futures market with a single computer-generated trade, according to a joint report by stock and derivatives market regulators last night.
Its conclusion was that the high-frequency traders who are supposed to provide liquidity to markets do not always fulfil that promise.
In a 15-second period, the report says, an equity market tracker called the E-Mini contract was pinged back and forth 27,000 times between high-frequency traders who did not want it on their books. The absence of real buyers caused the E-Mini, and the underlying shares whose value it reflected, to plunge and thousands of deals had to be cancelled.
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- Computer Crime
- Derivatives
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