NY collapse of stock markets may have been human error; Nasdaq cancels operations
2,275 viewsOn the day that global markets have come to plummet with the fear of contamination of the crisis in Greece, the Nasdaq (comprising shares in the technology sector) said it would cancel all operations performed between 14h40 and 15h (local time) this Thursday, ranging from high or low than 60% compared to prices of 14:40.
Scholarships in the U.S. had a day of panic on the afternoon of Thursday. The Dow recorded its steepest decline in points in the session (998.50 units), something unheard of on Wall Street, before partially recovering to close with a fall of 347.80 points (3.20%).
The Bovespa (Bolsa de Valores de Sao Paulo) had some of its worst “bumps” of the year with general nervousness with the Greek crisis and the prospect of “contagion” to other countries in the euro area. The Bovespa index, the barometer of business local exchange, retreated 2.31% at close, beating the 63 414 points. During the more nervous of the day, however, the stock market reached bitter losses of 6.38%.
Citigroup said it was investigating a rumor that one of its traders made a deal that helped trigger the fall of almost a thousand points in the Dow Jones. The third largest bank in the U.S., however, said it currently has no evidence that an operational error was committed, added the spokesman.
Sources told Reuters that the drop in the Dow Jones, which recorded the biggest intraday decline (buying and selling in the same trading day) in their history, may have been caused by an operational error committed by an employee of a major institution on Wall Street .
Market sources said that the error may have involved E-Mini contracts, index futures contracts on the stock market Globex platform of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME, the acronym in English). The composition of the E-Mini is similar to actions in the S & P 500.
A CME spokesman said no technical problems encountered in systems of exchange.
Other market sources said that errors in transactions involving the fund or the IWD mini S & P 500. A person close to BlackRock, a company that manages the IWD, said there were no unusual transactions in the product.
Amid the deteriorating market, shares of Procter & Gamble melted nearly 37% to U.S. $ 39.37, at 14h47 (local time), leading the company to investigate whether any operational errors occurred.
The papers are listed on the New York Stock Exchange, but the significant drop in prices was registered by an electronic platform for different operations.
“We do not know what caused it,” said a spokeswoman for Procter & Gamble Jennifer Chelun. “We know that this was an electronic operation … and we are checking this with the Nasdaq and other major electronic purse.”
An official of the NYSE that he left the headquarters of the Stock Exchange said that the fall of the roles of P & G is at the heart of what happened.
“I will give you a hint,” the official said on condition of anonymity. “P & G. Check out the sale the day lower. Something happened to my system. The stock fell $ 30 at any given time.”
Panic on the stock markets
“It is clear that there was a problem, either human or computer error, which caused the sinking of technical levels,” said Gregori Volkhine of Meeschaert New York.
Some stocks have drop-off: lost up to 15% 3M, Procter & Gamble, 24% and IT services group Accenture rose quickly from $ 40 to almost zero.
According to CNBC, citing several unnamed sources, a trader at Citigroup would have marked in error “one billion” instead of “one million” by passing an order on shares of Procter and Gamble, one of the major roles of the Dow Jones.
The operator passed an order for futures contracts related to the SP 500 index and not to Procter & Gamble, said a journalist from Fox Business News, Ken Sweet, on Twitter.
At CNBC, the president of the operator NYSE Euronext, Duncan Niederauer, estimated that these movements on a number of individuals do not necessarily depend on any errors.
The fact is that panic ensued and the NYSE suspended the business in some stocks for short periods, 30-90 seconds. During this time, the brokers’ computers programmed to speculate on these titles now sell them at any price, causing spectacular falls.
“It is a market structure that we chose in the United States.” “We must accept that these things occur in periods of extreme volatility”