A Trader Hit B For Billion Instead of M For Million and 7% Of the Entire Stock Market Was Lost Immediately

No, he was liquidating a position, the markets are trying to save face.

Look at the 1987 crash in the days before. Exact same thing here, except this time we got some real catalysts.

-Obama and his failures

-Just about every country in Europe

-Euro collapsing (central banks worldwide providing liquidity)

-Rapid Dollar rise

A rapid dollar rise is bad for all stocks, commodities which make up 30% of the S&P and world markets are mostly priced in dollars. This means cheaper commodities and lower profits.

Most trading firms make money off commodities, as do the big banks. This dollar rise will also hurt them.

In effect, the whole stock market is linked to a dollar rise and will plunge if the dollar rapidly revalues, which is why so many dollars were dumped in the first place.

Holding Dollars as cash right now is a pretty good idea.

Banks could fail, but thats a few weeks out, if Obama doesn't do anything.

The stock market wasn't "lost". It's still there. Some stocks were sold, others were bought.

Wait until the jobs report comes out tomorrow. Also if the Germans don't vote to agree with the plan for Greece, tomorrow will be another bloodbath.

Change you can believe in!

"

Amazing how you completely ignored what was said in the article and launched into your baseless pontifications.

Thats a BS reason for the sell off. The talking heads try to come up with reasons for everything. The truth is that the market has come way to far on way too much speculation. If it represented the actual economical situation we would still be around SPX 600, but instead we have almost doubled from the lows while huge problems still exist. People still remember 2007-2009 and are quick to hop out when the rest of the world runs for the door. The past couple days remind me eerily of 2007 when the first shots came across the bow in the form of huge drops and recoveries. I wouldn't be surprised if we go alot lower at some point in the next couple years.

Yeah, I thought Obama was a wizard who could fix Europe's problems, too. Literally a wizard.

UncleB wrote:

Amazing how you completely ignored what was said in the article and launched into your baseless pontifications.

Sounds like someone who hasn't covered his 401k position and is upset.

Well guess what? You shouldn't be mad at him, you should be mad at the democrats and the president who leads them.

This country will be just like Greece in a few months if the Democrats have their way.

Be mad at them.

lohalloran wrote:

Thats a BS reason for the sell off. The talking heads try to come up with reasons for everything. The truth is that the market has come way to far on way too much speculation. If it represented the actual economical situation we would still be around SPX 600, but instead we have almost doubled from the lows while huge problems still exist. People still remember 2007-2009 and are quick to hop out when the rest of the world runs for the door. The past couple days remind me eerily of 2007 when the first shots came across the bow in the form of huge drops and recoveries. I wouldn't be surprised if we go alot lower at some point in the next couple years.

Me neither. So, the markets finally figured out today that there's a sovereign debt crisis? Okay.

GUIDO APPLICATION wrote:

UncleB wrote:

Amazing how you completely ignored what was said in the article and launched into your baseless pontifications.

Sounds like someone who hasn't covered his 401k position and is upset.

Well guess what? You shouldn't be mad at him, you should be mad at the democrats and the president who leads them.

This country will be just like Greece in a few months if the Democrats have their way.

Be mad at them.

I have no idea what you are talking about. Do you? Does anyone?

Yup, Greece has been big news for weeks and it, along with the rest of the PIGS, has been on the radar of the big market players since this whole thing started in 2008.

Sure, someone with fat fingers accidentally tanked the market a 1000 points by pressing the wrong button. What a total BS story to appease the sleeping masses!

Signs for the US Econom are good:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100503/ts_alt_afp/useconomy

Sorry Obama haters. You and Rush want him to fail badly, but the guys just keeps on making progress.

it's a completely bogus story. no bank uses a trading platform where you input trade size with letters to simplify the quantity. even if it were an email to a trader that said to sell x Billion instead of x Million, multiple levels of approvals would be needed before he would be able to start selling a position that size (especially legal because it would have been an affiliate and restricted stock). even if there were some rogue trader who got an email with a mistaken Billion and he started trading it with no approvals, that would be just one stock. how do you explain all of the other stocks that traded at 1 cent for a few seconds?

it's shocking that the knuckleheads on cnbc (1) reported the story and (2) believed that story. then again, it's the knuckleheads on cnbc so it's not that shocking.

i love how you can just drop in "Obama and his failures" without any explanation as if you think it is a given. evidence much?

just saying wrote:

i love how you can just drop in "Obama and his failures" without any explanation as if you think it is a given. evidence much?

Anyone with a few brain cells knows exactly what he is talking about and does not need it laid out in print and spoon fed like an infant. Im sure he is sick of trying to explain basic economics and politics to backwards liberals who would not accept the truth if their life depended on it, like you.

Silent SUper Majority wrote:

Anyone with a few brain cells knows exactly what he is talking about and does not need it laid out in print and spoon fed like an infant. Im sure he is sick of trying to explain basic economics and politics to backwards liberals who would not accept the truth if their life depended on it, like you.

In other words, you're angry and don't know why?

"EHH.. you KNOW what I'm talking about! Do I have to actually say it!? Ahem. YEA, you know. THAT."

Typical conservative.

Get back to your tea bagging... err partying... dude.

tim bitener wrote:

it's a completely bogus story. no bank uses a trading platform where you input trade size with letters to simplify the quantity. even if it were an email to a trader

1. orders are not sent over email - they are entered and sent via an order routing system (FIX etc). Even if this were a client order, you would call and confirm the order on a recorded line.

2. order size is in "0"s, no "b" or "m" or "t".

3. size validation is standard to prevent oversized orders and manage market impact. So if your order size is great than $20mm, you get a few screens saying, "are you really sure you want to release this order?"

It was not a person that did this - it was a group of trading algos. Look at IWB. It went from $60 to $0.12 to $59 in 30 minutes. That is not a panic - that is a CLASSIC screwup of poor programming practice and JV liquidity assumptions.

lohalloran wrote:

Thats a BS reason for the sell off. The talking heads try to come up with reasons for everything. The truth is that the market has come way to far on way too much speculation. If it represented the actual economical situation we would still be around SPX 600, but instead we have almost doubled from the lows while huge problems still exist. .

You obviously don't understand the market. Yea the DOW has climbed a lot, but not because of too much speculation....but because the commpanies on it are doing well. Maybe the US hasn't changed, but the big companies have. They have cut costs, restructured, and are doing well.

see that is the problem with market fundamentalists, they only know how to explain BASIC economics. if you progress past the first 2 weeks of intro econ you learn that there are all kind of market imperfections that need government intervention. after 8 years of stepping away from virtually every marketplace we are now dealing with the results of the most free markets in the modern era.

hopefully the obama administration will unwind the banks that were labelled too big to fail under the antitrust laws that have been under utilized since teddy. and in doing so we should unrepeal the Glass-Steagall Act because taxpayers shouldn't insure investment banks. if people want to take big risks that is fine, they just shouldn't do it with our money.

the biggest hindrance to free markets is not the government, it is companies who have excessive market power. they lead to much greater inefficiencies in the market than any tax or regulation that the government has put in place.

in the end i am glad we ended up with the guy willing to do whatever it takes to help our economy and not the guy who thought the fundamentals of the economy were strong days before the market dropped more than 20% in response to the crumbling fundamentals.