While many will shrug at yet another "fat finger", we thought it useful to 'know' - as opposed to 'guess' - what really drove a more-than-10% flash-crash in Symantec stock this morning. As Nanex illustrates so clearly, in less than a second, over 500,000 shares were traded in a waterfall across 13 exchanges (and who knows how many dark pools). This triggered a circuit breaker which halted the stock trading for 5 minutes and when it resumed... it had recovered all those losses. We await news of the Johnny 5s' trades being disqualified as this was simply not a fat finger. Just another day in our efficient and highly liquid stock markets...
Via Nanex [4]
At 10:11:27, the stock of Symantec Corporation (Symbol: SYMC, Market Cap: $17 Billion) dropped 10% in just over 1 second on 500,000 shares. Trades executed on 13 exchanges and an unknown number of dark pools. The drop tripped a circuit breaker, prompting a 5 minute halt. After the halt, the price immediately recovered most of the drop.
1. SYMC - Trades color coded by reporting exchange.
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2. SYMC - Bids and Asks color coded by reporting exchange.
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3. SYMC - Trades color coded by reporting exchange. Showing 5 seconds of time.
7 quotes for every trade during the drop. Note how late Dark Pool trades are reported (green squares).
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4. SYMC - Bids and Asks color coded by reporting exchange. Showing 5 seconds of time.
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5. SYMC - Nanex Tick Chart.
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