I take it they're saying they can't trace the event to either deliberate depression of the market or an accidental sell campaign. Obviously given time every order can be traced. But what's the point? It does seem this was just a market functioning as a market - at the limit of its behaviour patterns - but its still just the market being the market.
So the idea behind this is that it's ok for the market to rally to the moon, but when it corrects, whoever sold is a criminal? OK got it
Most here are right - it is what it is. Things happen. I was just curious. I was interested in the mechanics of running the book. To my knowledge all of the Flashes are to the down side. There seems that there would be a lot of market orders instead of limit orders which I would think unusual. Put another way - if you want to down the market 800 points in 10 mins, what would you look for in market conditions and how would you do it?
No, genuine selling is no crime. Accidental sales due to "fat finger syndrome" is no crime. But generating unsustainable sell orders to artificially depress prices is a crime.