Sunday, April 24, 2011

Algorithmic trading gone wrong

Much research effort, by academics and practitioners alike, has been devoted to algorithmic trading in recent years, and at least one person I know blames the 2008 crisis for this surge in emphasis. Talking about blame, it appears almost certain that algorithmic trading played an important role in the flash crash of 2010.

But this is by far the most amusing example of algorithmic pricing gone astray: the ask price of a single book reaching millions and millions of dollars on Amazon before anyone noticed.

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