Maze cartoon on volatility of stock markets. By Yonatan Frimer

Maze cartoon on volatility of stock markets. By Yonatan Frimer

Maze cartoon of a bear and a bull in a room with a referee who says, "How about you run one day and the other runs the next day..." Created by Yonatan Frimer
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Cartoon topic in the news:

Earnings reports could spark summertime market rally

TORONTO — Investors could find a reason to extend last week's strong advance on North American stock markets if U.S. second-quarter corporate earnings, the first of which are expected Monday, live up to high expectations.

"If we can get some confirmation from the earnings and then the stocks rally on that, it will be a very good sign that we'll have a decent summer," said Blair Falconer, portfolio manager at HSBC Securities.

North American markets finished higher last week, with the TSX up 3.34 per cent and the Dow industrials ahead 5.28 per cent as bargain hunters moved in following big slides of over four per cent the previous week.

Projected profits rise as stocks fall

NEW YORK — Analysts are raising earnings estimates for U. S. companies at the fastest rate since at least 2004 during a quarter when stocks have posted some of their biggest losses in 16 months on concern that the economy will sink back into a recession.

Profit for companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index now are expected to jump 34 percent this year, according to more than 8,000 estimates compiled by Bloomberg. On March 29, the projected increase had been 27 percent. The revision is the greatest during any quarter in at least six years.

But lower-than-forecast home sales, manufacturing and private-sector job growth have sent the benchmark gauge for U. S. equities down 11 percent since hitting 1,217 April 23, despite last week’s rally.

stocks effected by human error, cartoon maze

Maze Cartoon - Effects of Human Error on Stock Market

Maze cartoon editorial showcasing how stocks are effected by human error, buy having a bull represent stocks and a cowboy wrangling him to represent human error.

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Sharp stock market drop likely human, computer error

By Lucas Mearian

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted almost 1,000 points in a half-hour today, the cause of which appears to be human error exacerbated by a market made more volatile by high-speed trades and automatic sale orders that are measured in milliseconds.

Sources said a trader attempting to short-sell 16 million shares of S&P 500 stock, possibly involving Proctor & Gamble profits, entered a "b" for billion instead of an "m" for million. That error sent high frequency traders scurrying, causing liquidity to vanish.

The Dow fell as low as 9,867 points from its previous day's close of 10,868 before rebounding to 10,464 points by the close of the market today.

Chris Nagy, managing director of order routing strategy at TD Ameritrade, was moderating a panel on market structure at a trade operations conference at about 2 p.m. EST, when he was notified of the market drop.

"It seemed a little suspicious at the time. That's our conclusion," Nagy said. "But we've warned the SEC [U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission] of a lot of the problems created with some of the high-frequency trading in the marketplace."

"When you have some algorithmic error, which this is appearing to be, the impact of that trade caused the pricing in the markets to collapse," Nagy continued.

For example, Nagy said some of TD Ameritrade's client orders, where the normal price of the stock was $60, received trade fulfillments at .11 cents.

In another example, The Wall Street Journal's MarketBeat blog reported one stock price on Accenture's platform plummeted from over $40 at 2:47 p.m. to $.01 at 2:48 p.m. today.

"So clearly there was a flaw in the system and there were some algorithmic events that triggered a much more cataclysmic event in the marketplace," Nagy said.

At the time of the drop, the Dow had already dipped about 300 points due in large measure to....(Click here to read the rest of the article)