The trader who has panicked Wall Street .

Keywords: Wall Street, Trader, Error, U.S., CITIGROUP.

The New York Stock Exchange experienced a crash Thursday dizzy for about twenty minutes. According to the Exchange, a series of errors explain the stall "delusional" for certain securities. A trader has confused millions and billions.

The scenario is perfect for a Hollywood film debut. One trader, tired and under pressure in a trading room of one of the largest banks, wants to spend a few million dollars - a commonplace in the current financial - on the S & P 500 stock index, which includes 500 U.S. market capitalizations.

The Dow Jones fell to 9873 points, while he was at 10,880 points in early trading.

But he is wrong and slap "billion" instead of "millions", and click on the value Procter & Gamble, a giant consumer products in the United States. In a few nano-seconds, shares fall ... up to 37%!
Result: the Dow Jones, the chief U.S. Equity Index, which is listed on Procter & Gamble, suffered the brunt of these losses, and tumbles into seven minutes of 9%. Not seen since the 1987 crash!
In that time, it is $ 1,000 billion market cap flying off.The Dow Jones breaks 10,000 points and literally touch a record low points in 9873 shortly before 9:00 p.m. (Paris time), when it had reached 10,880 points in early trade, about 16 hours.
In the downward spiral, some actions have left their feathers, as the massive group 3M, which won 15%. What about Accenture, whose stock price has imploded, 99.9%, falling from $ 41 to several hundred.
The owners of these large groups have had to go through intense minutes. Their pulse was able to find decent levels twenty minutes later when prices are, too, recovered to normal.
"An unusual activity" have immediately found the U.S. stock market regulators. Worthy of a crash. An inquiry opens.

Citigroup provided, erroneous transactions on several tracks:
In reality, this is not confirmed human error. CNBC is that spread information that it would be a trader Citigroup who would in many anonymous sources "confused the millions and billions." According to Fox Business News, the trader wanted to sell forward $ 16 million on the S & P 500 (that is to say, betting on a decline in the index) but spent his order on Procter & Gamble for $ 16 billionSays one of the journalists on Twitter.
When questioned, Citigroup has not confirmed immediately. A spokesman said the bank was investigating the rumor, but for now she had no proof that a transaction has been incorrectly placed. "We do not know what happened (between 2:40 p.m. ET 15:00 New York time, NDRL), we study the problem with the Nasdaq and other major electronic markets," he said.
Before the opening of Wall Street, this Friday, the bank has denied that the mistake was trading on his part.

Cancelled Trades:
Anyway, around 2:40 p.m. New York time, the Dow Jones declines suddenly, causing reactions of chain sales triggered by the automata of order, which even more leaden index. A few minutes later, everyone admits that there was an error, technical or human - whatever - and the panic has given way to healing.
For its part, the Nasdaq - which regroups the 100 largest listed companies excluding financial - said it was investigating possible erroneous transactions on several counts.
Meanwhile, the company said it would "cancel all transactions carried out between 3:00 p.m. 2:40 p.m. ET at prices higher or lower than 60% of the final price on this title.

Computer equipment off-reality:
These differences inevitably revive the debate over the computer systems of trading in high frequency (high frequency), which is to conduct operations to the speed of light!
Thus, as the planet is in finance, these orders went to great speed represent 60-70% of all transactions in the world. The traders use a strategy to take advantage of differences in the speed rating of market prices.
"Traders have the right to do that, the regulation does not prohibit them. The problem yesterday was that it is not surprising. What is appalling is the lack of control that exists in finance, "railed Marc Fiorentino broadcast on BFM Friday morning.
However, since the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, the issue of financial regulation seems to be a central concern of policy. Without real achievement so far.