By John Kemp – Monday’s (Sep 17) sudden dive in oil prices appears more and more unusual with hindsight, and poses questions for traders, regulators and exchanges alike about just who or what caused such a major turnaround in the market.
Explanations range from a “fat finger” trading error or a high-frequency computer trading program run amok to a concentration of stop-loss orders being triggered or a single large trade by a hedge fund selling up to 10 million barrels of crude in a single clip, though no one appears to know for certain.
The September 17 price drop had characteristics of both a flash crash and a more significant and long-lived turning point. more> http://tinyurl.com/8dk3ctg
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