Woah.... Stock Market Crash Due To Error?

Stock Selloff May Have Been Triggered by a Trader Error

In one of the most dizzying half-hours in stock market history, the Dow plunged nearly 1,000 points before paring those losses—all apparently due to a trader error.

According to multiple sources, a trader entered a "b" for billion instead of an "m" for million in a trade possibly involving Procter & Gamble [PG 60.75 -1.41 (-2.27%) ], a component in the Dow. (CNBC's Jim Cramer noted suspicious price movement in P&G stock on air during the height of the market selloff. Watch.)

Sources tell CNBC the erroneous trade may have been made at Citigroup [C 4.04 -0.14 (-3.35%) ].

www.cnbc.com...

So an error involving one of the biggest and shadiest companies in the world right in the middle of elections in the UK cause the largest drop in history. And it occured in a 30 minute time frame. I know there is already an existing thread on the crash, but I just saw this new article about the "error." The cause of it. While not yet official, there seems to be a lot of corroborating evidence that it was an error that caused it.

Aren't there safeguards against this?

This has to be some sort of conspiracy. Right?
How can you make that large of an error?

[edit on 6-5-2010 by webpirate]

reply to post by webpirate


Americans made the similar mistake when they "voted for change." Except it wasn't an "m" or "b". It was a "t" for trillion!

they call it "fat finger problem" when he hit a 'b' instead of an 'm'

Is this actually common???

www.news.com.au...

Originally posted by Violater1
reply to post by webpirate

 

Americans made the similar mistake when they "voted for change." Except it wasn't an "m" or "b". It was a "t" for trillion!

This has nothing to do with the article and the trillion defecit already existed WELL before Obama was elected into office...
--

Seems like insider trading to me. Let's see some earnings to see if they bet that the market would fail or something. If so, darn insider traders!!

The B and M keys aren't even typed by the same hand. And realistically, how often do they type billion anyways?

I agree. This is very suspicious. Insider trading or something. Gold was apparently up again today too.

I think this was planned. The fix was on.....

This mistake would be more like in the $trillion range, not the billion. That's one hell of a fat finger.

I don't buy it for a minute. Something happened, it even triggered "circuit breakers"

Oh, the lies of the world.

Maybe the stock market was at an artificially high place and just needed a jolt to send it down.

Imagine placing an object in high, precarious place. A gust of wind, an earthquake, a car back firing, etc. can knock the object to the ground. In some respects, you can blame the fall of the object on the stimulus that acted on the object shortly before its fall. However, the ultimate cause of the fall was not the stimulus, but the fact the object was placed in a high place. If one stimulus did not know the object down, another stimulus would have certainly knocked it down.

Perhaps the same can be said of the stock market. If some glitch at Proctor & Gamble did not knock it down, it would have been knocked down by any number of stimuli including: riots in Greece, the Gulf Oil Spill, or terror attacks in New York.

It's like the Wizard of Oz.

WASHINGTON — Following last-minute adjustments, a proposal to audit the Federal Reserve that the Obama administration once opposed was on the verge of passing the Senate as it attracted broad support from conservatives and liberals alike.

Fed Audit Proposal Gains Momentum in the Senate

The Wizard is pulling all the levers to keep from being exposed! It's like "We" will show you what "We" can do if you push "Us" into a corner! C'mon if we only had a brain, a little courage, and a heart.

Citibank denies any errors.


Speculation does not equal facts.

Deny ignorance.

reply to post by FalselyFlagged


The original article wasn't speculating. They were citing multiple sources. And of course whoever did it was going to deny they did anything wrong. Especially if they were complicit in it.....

[edit on 6-5-2010 by webpirate]

reply to post by webpirate



First of all, those articles WERE speculating, as they have no facts to base their premise.

Just because multiple sites speculate, does not mean its a fact. If that were the case, I'm glad we found all those WMDs in Iraq.


It's not a crime to make an error. If they made an error and sold a lot they would admit to it. It's not hard to check the records. If they are lying they will get caught in a worse PR situation.

[edit on 6-5-2010 by FalselyFlagged]

Some one takes a "B" for an "M"...

...And the SM (Stock Market) goes into the "Crapper".



If there is a "God", and He/She/It writes this stuff... Definitely a warpped sense of humor!

[edit on 6-5-2010 by Bhadhidar]

reply to post by FalselyFlagged

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are reviewing “unusual trading” that contributed to a plunge in U.S. equity markets today, according to a joint statement from the agencies. The SEC and CFTC said they plan to make the findings of their review public along with recommendations for appropriate action.

Transactions

Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. said it’s working with other markets to review transactions during the plunge. Procter & Gamble Co. said it’s looking into electronic trading of the company’s stock to determine whether the trades were made in error. Its shares sank as much as 37 percent and closed down 2.3 percent.

www.bloomberg.com...

OK. Maybe it wasn't a "fat finger" problem, but they are admitting that there was "unusual trading." The speculation was it involved Citigroup. But something did happen. Whether it was a human error or computer error, something just isn't right with this.

We have traders who have spent many many years in that line of work, who state they were around during the 1987 crash, and say this floored them way more than that ever did.

There were an abundance of events going on around the world today that could have and did lead to some decline, but NASDAQ admits between 2:40 and 3 PM something was wrong, and they are saying they might reverse some trades that happened during that period.