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Sunday, October 7, 2012

Friday Flash Crash makes Nifty drop 800 points .

Technology turns things around. But not always for the better. Operational errors happen once in a while but when they do, they really can disrupt things. A glaring instance of this was seen in the markets on Friday when an erroneous trade by domestic financial services firm, Emkay Global, ended up halting the trading systems of the National Stock Exchange (NSE). Involving amounts over Rs 6.5 bn, the multiple erroneous trades at low prices triggered index filter and led to a halt in trading. As an outcome, NSE-Nifty lost 800 points. BSE-Sensex wasn't spared either and took a 200 point hit. While there were no long term consequences, the event is indeed an eye opener and offers us opportunity to make amends. The wide usage of algorithmic trading software in such large numbers can cause huge losses to the market and is something that needs to be addressed by the exchange.

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