Speed Limits for Financial Markets? Not So Fast
By IMFBlog
June 1, 2017
Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (photo: Andrew Kelly/Reuters/Newscom)
On the afternoon of May 6, 2010, a financial tsunami hit Wall Street. Stunned traders watched as graphs on their computer screens traced the vertiginous 998-point plunge in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which erased $1 trillion in market value in 36 minutes.
There was little in the way of fundamental news to drive such a dramatic decline, and stocks bounced back later that day. The event, quickly dubbed the “flash crash,” focused attention on the role of high-frequency trading and algorithms in amplifying market volatility.