When markets broke on Wednesday, XIV soared, stocks followed and the volumeless levitation was praised by all as evidence that the world was once again fixed. Yesterday we also saw NYSE Euronext 'break' into the European melt-up close, and later that day, as Ebola headlines hit, the market once again broke numerous times with various exchanges declaring self-help against one another as stocks tumbled on heavy volume. If you are wondering how it is that "the great stock markets in the world" can break so often (and be so ignored by financial media), Nanex exposes the act... as massive quote spamming yesterday sent OPRA to full capacity (broke the efficient flow of data in markets) 13 times...
As Nanex's Eric Hunsader explains each peak over 10 milloin quotes per second - ocurring after a sale of 1025 S&P 500 e-mini contracts - temporarily maxed capacity at OPRA and broke markets... (and a 15 point insta-plunge occurred)
[5]
and here are the major stocks reacting to the order floods...
[6]
Source: Nanex @NanexLLC
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And here is why ISE broke yesterday - Rule 720A [7]
[8]
In other words, someone/thing was sending enough fake orders that ISE invoked Rule 720A and shut the system down.
