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Computer Glitch Causes Havoc and Losses on Nasdaq

goombah99 writes "In an illustration of how fragile the electronic stock market system is the NY Times is reporting how a tiny computer glitch rippled through the Stock Markets with buyers who bought low and sold high taking huge losses. An erroneous large sell order was entered. Many people bought at this low price, then signed options contracts to sell these at higher prices, locking in a profit. Or so they thought utill the erroneous low sell order was removed. Now to honor their options they had to buy the stock at a higher price. Since exchanges trust each other's trade prices it rippled throughout the system. There does not seem to be any way to gracefully undo such errors."

14 of 324 comments (clear)

  1. My wish by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I wish there was a way for me, as a Christian, as a human being, to sit down with some of you and have a pleasant, civil discussion without bitterness or sarcasm. I don't force people to believe what I believe. I don't mock others with different beliefs. I hope I can find the words to explain myself, as my life goes on. I hope I can help people to see.

    1. Re:My wish by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      I don't know about you, but I would like to thank God for making me a Jew. Since you are a Christian you will not go to heaven unlike myself, you will go to hell. You see, I am part of the chosen race by God. You are not chosen. Chirstianity promotes a homosexual life style despite the anti-homosexual campaign from religious figures such as the Pope. I would not want any part of the corruption that you idle stand by and let happen. I want to make it clear, I thank God for making me a chosen person.

  2. What about this time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Any chance?

  3. Systems supported by Red hat or something? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    What, was their system supported by Red Hat? I thought they knew that their paid-for support would be ripped out from beneath them. Oh but don't worry, they will give you a fantastically PR garbled sales pitch on why you should upgrade to their other, more expensive support options.

    Roblimo said Suzlik's babble wasn't PR material. Heh, real braniac there. Putz.

  4. Spelling corrected. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    "In an illustration of how fragile the electronic stock market system is the NY Times is reporting how a tiny computer glitch rippled through the Stock Markets with buyers who bought low and sold high taking huge losses. An erroneous large sell order was entered. Many people bought at this low price, then signed options contracts to sell these at higher prices, locking in a profit. Or so they thought until the erroneous low sell order was removed. Now to honor their options they had to buy the stock at a higher price. Since exchanges trust each other's trade prices it rippled throughout the system. There does not seem to be any way to gracefully undo such errors."

    1. Re:Spelling corrected. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      "In an illustration of how fragile the electronic stock market system is the NY Times is reporting how a tiny computer glitch rippled through the Stock Markets with buyers who bought low and sold high taking huge losses. An erroneous large sell order was entered. Many people bought at this low price, then signed options contracts to sell these at higher prices, locking in a profit. Or so they thought until the erroneous low sell order was removed. Now to honor their options they had to buy the stock at a higher price. Since exchanges trust each other's trade prices it rippled throughout the system. There does not seem to be any way to gracefully undo such errors."

  5. Re:Easy Fix by I+Be+Hatin' · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    People learn do overs when there (sic) like 5 years old.

    And some people even learn the difference between there, their, and they're by the time they're 10.

    --
    I know god exists. I read it on the internet, so it must be true.
  6. Probably open source software at fault by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    And RMS was behind it. Check it out, he profited!

  7. Re:Hmm.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Motherf*ckin' karma whore. What a worthless comment (just like this one).

  8. this obvious, repetitive troll should be auto -1 by NSash · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Whoever modded this +1 funny should never get any mod points again... ever.

  9. Re:Easy Fix by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    You may be surprised to know that you're the only person in the whole world that gives a shit. Please FOAD quietly without wasting any more precious bandwidth.

  10. Re:Haha by mlrtime · · Score: 0, Offtopic



    I'll probably be modded down for this, but linux is more susceptible to bugs than the software that runs nasdaq ie os/390 & vms.

  11. Re:Poor slobs. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Learn to spell Fucker.

  12. Re:Bound to happen. by demachina · · Score: 2, Offtopic
    Here is an interesting, though left wing interview with Standard Schaefer on the ulterior motivies of the imminent plan by the Republicans to privatize social security and to use it to pump money in to Wall Street. It should be taken with a grain of salt but raises a lot of thought provoking questions about how the markets really work.

    Assuming the Republican's retain control of power next year its a near certainty they are going to make a first attempt at privitizing Social Security. The case for this was very strong during the bubble, they just had to point to how much money people were making in the stock market versus the miniscule return on the money in social security.

    This movement suffered a major setback when the bubble burst and large numbers of small investors had their retirements wiped out and ended up working at Walmart. Of course they could have stayed the course, assuming they hadn't put all their money in complete turkeys Wall Street told them were sure things, and would have come out OK but a lot of people saw their life savings disappearing at an alarming rate and managed to get out just in time for the bottom of the market.

    So Wall Street and the Republicans are pretty keen on the current bull run to continue, and are doing everything they can to fuel it, as in extremely low interest rates to fuel margin buys and cutting taxes on dividends, so they can resume the plan to move Social Security money that is mostly going towards covering the deficit in to the stock market. The influx of this new money should further fuel a boom market that will rival the last bubble. Unfortunately there is a pretty good chance it will be followed by another huge correction, another one those in the know will correctly time, and get out on top, while the most basic retirement security of a lot of average people will be wiped out again.

    From the article above:

    "The financial sector is looking at these funds like a shark that sees nice juicy prey swimming in the water. They would love to get their hands on Social Security and Medicare funds to manage, at a 2% fee. Even just 1% this would amount to tens of billions of dollars annually, not including the speculative gains that could be made on the turbulent market run-up."

    --
    @de_machina