Computer errors cause wild swings on Wall Street
By The Week Staff | August 1, 2012
Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange: The Dow Jones Industrial Average has surprisingly climbed 19 percent since October.
REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
A
n errant computer stock-trading program sent the New York Stock Exchange on a wild ride on Wednesday, flooding the market with millions of trades that sent the stocks of more than 100 major companies sharply up and down. The volatile trading revived concerns about the growing role of computerized traders, which can execute thousands of trades in the blink of an eye, exacerbating errors that humans could catch more easily. Markets quickly recovered from the snafu, but not before the NYSE was forced to halt some trading to prevent stock prices from heading to zero or shooting through the roof.
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