What should investors watch in 2012? As the new year dawns, there are plenty of short-term issues on the horizon, ranging from the eurozone to fiscal gridlock in the US to upheavals in the Middle East.
But amid that list there is also another, often ignored, question to ponder: could 2012 produce a repeat of the “flash crash”, the bizarre episode that hit the U.S. equity markets back on May 6 2010?
Think about it for a moment. A full 18 months have passed since the strange episode that caused the Dow Jones [.DJI Loading… () ] to tumble 650 points in half an hour, wiping $850 billion off share prices, before rebounding. Since then, the issue has faded from view amid the eurozone drama.
But to this day, nobody has fully explained what really happened on May 6. Nor is there any evidence that the fundamental problems that caused the flash crash have been resolved. That leaves some scientists fearing that not only is a repeat of that flash crash possible, but it is probable — and next time round, it could be even more damaging.
To understand this, take a look at a fascinating transatlantic research paper published by the Bank for International Settlements. One of the paper’s co-authors is Dave Cliff, formerly a financial trader who now runs the UK government’s Large-Scale Complex Information Technology Systems project, an endeavour that analyses the risks of IT systems in sectors including healthcare, nuclear energy and finance. The other, Linda Northrop, runs a similar project at Carnegie Mellon University, which was initiated a decade ago by the US military.
In recent years, these two teams have used engineering and science skills to analyse what they call socio-technical risks, or the dangers that occur whenever complex technological systems proliferate, creating “systems of systems” that nobody understands. In early 2010, well before May 6, they released a brilliantly prescient report that predicted that a systems failure loomed.
Let’s hope that a repeat of the mysterious ‘crash’ like 2008 is not going to happen, since it could once again be a sign of meddling to help their boy obama.
I don’t understand much, but I have a gut feeling, they are playing with money that doesn’t exist,
until at one time or another they play surprise that they cannot pay their employers with paper money, like CORZINE, claiming he doesn’t know where the billions went. It look like international shady deals are being swindle right under our eyes, on a spur of a moment, that would look like OBAMA style to spend billions on his revolution, and then cover it with invisible colateral, until they look at the
debt ceiling rising up, showing just the number for AMERICANS TO SEE and get angry, but behind it what is hidden would get AMERICANS ON THE STREET YELLING TO GET HIS HEAD, IF THEY HAD THE REAL NUMBERS PUBLCIZED,
no one know in detail where did the money went yet, and no one is asking either, strange is in it, when you have so many public employees in the GOVERNEMENT , maybe that is the reason they can cover easier, the more people the more easy to hide it.
let just think of CORZINE AGAIN, ALL WENT MUTE, BUT IT’S INCREDIBLE TO HEAR HIM SAY HE DOESN’T KNOW WHERE THE BILLIONS WENT, WITH A STAFF BEHIND HIM WORKING IN THE COMPANY, SUPPOSIVLY AWARE OF SOMETHING, AND NOBODY MENTIONED IT ANYMORE
the news has died and we’ll never find out the possible international cover up which would get some people hang, except that some head of countries have fallen like just name ITALY, AND GREECE AND WHO ELSE, UNLESS YOU WANT TO TAKE A LOOK AT ARAB SPRING LEADERS KIND OF EASILY REMOVED, ONE AFTER THE OTHER, WE WHERE JUST LOOKING AT THE PEOPLE REVOLUTION, BUT WHO TOOK A LOOK AT THE MONEY BEING MISPLACE INTERNATIONELY UNDER COVER
AND ON A GLOBAL SCALE, WE WOULD ALL FREAK OUT TO LEARN JUST A BIT OF IT,
I am just doing like every one, thinking out loud and assuming of course, but when something make an outsider start assuming, there is some truth in there,