Knight...Trading program ran amok [General] - MarketTicker Forums


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User Info	Knight...Trading program ran amok in forum [General]
Connieg Posts: 860 Incept: 2008-06-08 Houston, TX	http://www.cnbc.com/id/48498846 Apparently, the program run for 30 min with no "kill" switch either available or used. Quote: As Knight struggled to survive on Friday, employees at the company, market overseers and other electronic trading firms were asking the same basic question: Where was the off switch? Several market insiders said that they were bewildered, because in a market where trading losses can pile up in seconds, executives typically have a simple command that can immediately halt trading. "Even just a minute or two would have been surprising to me. On these time scales, that is an eternity," said David Lauer, a trader at a high-speed firm until a year ago. "To have something going on for 30 minutes is shocking." Barrons reports: "Knight felled by its own sword." http://online.barrons.com/article/SB5000.... Quote: The market's Achilles' heel remains a regulatory system seemingly incapable of keeping pace with technological innovations. Regulators don't seem to know what problems, if any, lurk in the computer systems of the global marketplace. Personally, I am temporarily pulling out of active market trading. ---------- "Go long...something" Me Last modified: 2012-08-04 12:11:30 by connieg 2012-08-04 12:08:29 Permalink
Covenant Posts: 267 Incept: 2009-01-13	kill -9 it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOW! ---------- There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. -- Atlas Shrugged No matter how good you look in the mirror, the skinny little BJJ kid is still gonna choke you. 2012-08-04 18:44:30 Permalink
Erictheoracle Posts: 307 Incept: 2008-10-17 Minnesota Online	2012-08-05 03:23:37 Permalink
$4beagle Posts: 438 Incept: 2008-02-05	I am surprised the company has yet to blame an Indian IT Engineer. 2012-08-05 09:40:48 Permalink
Swingtrader Posts: 9108 Incept: 2007-08-12 United Oligarchic Goldman Sachs States of America	Classic Quote wrote.. Hoist by their own Petard Bwahahahah. ---------- Swing said "Well, it is collapsing as we watch.This is what it looks like." Australian federal judge Jayne Jagot, doing what US judges need to do! 2012-08-05 14:57:30 Permalink
Brewcrew2 Posts: 149 Incept: 2011-02-18 New Jersey	In the real tangible world, on a production floor, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting an E-STOP. Everyone knows that if something, anything seems wrong, pull the e-stop now and explain the downtime later. Yet, our global financial regulators can't figure out how to stop an automatic trading computer program from killing us all. God help us. 2012-08-05 20:34:25 Permalink
Rvacha Posts: 8295 Incept: 2008-10-03 Cleveland Online	Ideally you deign the system such that the emergency stop never has to be used - that's what they strive for in the production world. KCG not having a stop is bad, but designing algos that can run amok is worse. And I believe there should be TWO stop switches - one that auto stops once X% of capital burn is reached, the second being a human initiated stop. Of course being a financial entity the one thing missing in all of this is of course transparency - there's been no word on what went wrong and how they now know beyond a shadow of a doubt it is fixed. The technical/mathematical solution brought forward as always is "trust us". ---------- "I suggest you panic." - Hugh Hendry 2012-08-06 08:18:57 Permalink
Lplate Posts: 4737 Incept: 2008-08-06 Australia	tweet ZH: Quote: KNIGHT AUG. 1 TRADING LOSS SAID LINKED TO DORMANT SOFTWARE edited reported via @BloombergNews Last modified: 2012-08-14 10:07:46 by lplate 2012-08-14 10:04:56 Permalink
Rufust445 Posts: 661 Incept: 2007-08-11 Emerald City	According to this story: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/knight-.... Some new software loaded into Knight's system set some older software off and running that fateful Wednesday morning. Judging from the increase in HFT as shown in that animated graph from Nanex, so many companies are getting into it so deep, they don't have enough competent IT people to effectively manage the software. That along with upper management in the finance industry having little to no clue of what their tech people actually do. ---------- "The stock market isn't bullish, it's bull$hit." -- Alan King 2012-08-14 17:58:56 Permalink