LOL! The REAL reason for Wall Street's plunge

[n2doc]

[ThomWV]

1. Its a great cartoon, but it really scares the shit out of me what happen

That little blip last week will soon be forgotten by almost everyone but I thought it was the equivalent of 100 cases of bubonic plague showing up in New York City on a single day. It might have just been a momentary blip on the financial radar screen but it was an indication that something is lurking in our trading system, the world's trading system, that can bring it down in less than 5 minutes with no warning what so ever. And if that doesn't scare the hell out of you then we are much different people.

[MellowOne]

2. One more lie from Wall Street

My first reaction to the so called "blip" was that people were selling off stocks like crazy and Wall Street needed a way to explain it. Thousands of people protested and marched on Wall Street last week, and I felt that stocks would tumbled after the protest. Something to think about anyway.

[ThomWV]

4. I can't see any connection at all

The blip, for lack of a better name, took place from beginning to end in less than 10 minutes and individual investors were not selling anything off like crazy, they were standing in front of computer screens stuck numb but an unexplainable event.

Something happened and it was something bigger than the bank bail out and what is so very amazing is that at least so far there is no plausible explanation for it other than a cascade of program trades that built on each other much like the chain reaction that causes a nuclear bomb to go off. That may indeed be what caused it, but if so then that sort of trading must be stopped or appropriately regulated immediately.

[MellowOne]

12. You have your opinion and I have mine

And life goes on. I can't really believe someone was so careless to not double check a transaction. I trade almost daily and always double check my figures before hitting the sell button. Professionals cannot afford to be so sloppy.

[truedelphi]

15. I enjoyed your explanation very much.

We rebelling workers (and ex workers) had them shaking in their boots. Sounds good to me.

[sendero]

16. This was not a "fat fingered" trade..

... this was dozens of program trading algorithms all triggering on the same data and trying to sell all at once. Since most stock market trading is now done by such entities, there was nobody on the buy side and the market gapped down.

Once the humans realized what was going on the shut the damn things off and the market more or less restored itself.

[Statistical]

18. LOL.

So people universally sold off stocks on wall street for exactly 8 minutes and 39 seconds and which point buying pressure resumed and stocks rebounded.

:rofl:

[Myrina]

9. Reminds me of the 90's movie "Sneakers"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlKDkTbUFhU

[truedelphi]

14. Have you read Jeremy Rifkin? Scary stuff. He pointed out several years ago

That not only is our stock market run by computer algorithms, so is our missile defense system. And whereas the crash of 1987 and last week's events have allowed for human override, there is NOTHING in our defense system that currently allows for human override. In fact, each year, it becomes more mechanized.

Flocks of geese in Alaska translated by radar as incoming nukes? Kiss your ass goodbye, Baby, because that's about all we will be able
to do...

[meow2u3]

3. Who let the cats out?

mrow, mrow mrow mrow!

[pinboy3niner]

5. Why do you hate America?

And why do you love our feline anti-capitalist enemies? It's obvious from your posting name that you are at LEAST a fellow traveler, if not a total FELINISTA!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

7. LOL!

[Fla_Democrat]

6. What a bad thing to happen

on take your cat to work day. :evilgrin:

[uponit7771]

8. The REAL reason was a trading firm tripped sell triggers on purpose, does ANYONE really believe

...that are securities trading systems are that volatile and that EVERYONE is perfect and NEVER fat fingers save for Thursday?

Come on people, there's millions of people buyin and selling securities every minute and not all of them are perfect keyers.

I work in finance, fat finger amounts happen frequently but this one happened just a lil over 10% from top. I've seen firms do this crap before and the SEC ignore them before also...

[ShockediSay]

10. Instant computerized trading is just another form of unlawful 'trading ahead' IMHO

The big computerized trading desks see what's coming, and

take advantage of the information vs info the common investors have.

I think it should be proscribed as part of Walls St reform.

[spin]

11. My cat thought that was funny. (n/t)

[eppur_se_muova]

13. Does that explain all those instant unrecs as well ? nt

[AnArmyVeteran]

17. Hil - fucking - larious!!!

Even with billions of dollars in state of the art technology, something like this could still happen...

[CatWoman]

19. LOL

one of mine :)