Biz: How Thursday’s “flash crash” might have happened
- one A bunch of sell
requests went in
all at once. These trades were made automatically using computers. - two The older New York
Stock Exchange’s
circuit breaker went
off – an automated
attempt to cool off
the market. - three The computers
didn’t understand
this, and totally
freaked out
because of the
lack of buyers. - four The stock market
“flash crash” sped
up. In other words,
one system didn’t
understand the
other. source