Sat, Jul 11, 2026
A A A
Welcome Guest
Free Trial RSS pod
Get FREE trial access to our award winning publications
Alternative Market Briefing

May 6 'flash crash': Exchanges were on different pages - Opalesque Roundtable Boston

Friday, June 11, 2010

From Komfie Manalo, Opalesque Asia:

The so-called May 6 "flash crash" which saw the Dow Jones drop 1000 points was not a product of market manipulation or monopoly, but rather was due to the fact that "not everybody was on the same page" on that day, so said participants of the latest Opalesque Roundtable in Boston.

Alec Petro, Managing Partner at Bay Hill Capital Management, a volatility-focused, multi-strategy hedge fund based in Massachusetts with $130m in AuM, said that the May 6 incident was an example of too much information and too much velocity overwhelming liquidity, coupled by a decision by "guys like us to just turn our machines off."

"People were used to a certain level of liquidity and we made a decision at a point on that Thursday that we cannot trade reasonably in this market and went into a 'wait' mode, that created a vacuum and a certain momentum along with that. Hopefully the exchanges will unify their circuit breakers, because the circuit breakers, when they kicked in, did a good job; it is just that not everybody was on the same page with them. I do believe that this sudden withdrawal of liquidity by a group of systematic traders did affect the market," Petro said.

This sentiment was seconded by Thomas Callahan, CEO of NYSE Li......................

To view our full article Click here

Previous Opalesque Exclusives                                  
Previous Other Voices                                               
Access Alternative Market Briefing

 



  • Top Forwarded
  • Top Tracked
  • Top Searched
  1. Other Voices: Nvidia extraordinary growth and the challenge of sustaining demanding valuations over time[more]

    Antonio Di Giacomo, Senior Market Analyst at XS.com, writes: Nvidia has established itself as one of the most extraordinary growth companies in the global technology sector. Over the past two fiscal years, its revenues have risen from levels close to $60 billion annually to well above $120 billi

  2. Secondaries take center stage: What the 2026 PE landscape means for GPs and investors[more]

    Matthias Knab, Opalesque for New Managers: The 2026 edition of Dechert's Global Private Equity Outlook - "Signs of a Gradual Thaw" - marks a notable shift in industry sentiment. After years of compr

  3. And, finally: Time to share it with the people[more]

    From Newsoftheweird: Leavenworth, Washington, has become a tourist destination because of the Bavarian theme businesses have adopted there, NPR reported. One shop, the Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum, houses the world's largest nutcracker collection, thanks to 101-year-old Arlene Wagner. Wagner sta

  4. Opalesque Exclusive: Private Markets Evergreen Funds - An Insider's View[more]

    Matthias Knab, Opalesque for New Managers: Private Markets Evergreen Funds: What Investors Need to Know Before They Dive In The democratization of private markets is well underway. Structural barriers t

  5. Opalesque Exclusive: Governance, Scale, and Boutique Resilience in a Consolidating Hedge Fund Industry[more]

    Matthias Knab, Opalesque for New Managers: The hedge fund industry has undergone significant consolidation in recent years, with capital increasingly concentrated among large multi-strategy platforms. Yet boutique m