Regulators are scrutinizing what some in the stock market are calling "quote stuffing," trading in which unusually large numbers of orders to buy or sell stocks are placed in a fraction of a second, only to be canceled almost immediately. The Securities and Exchange Commission has begun looking into whether the practice is putting some investors at a disadvantage by distorting stock prices, according to people familiar with the matter. The SEC is looking at what role, if any, quote stuffing played in the May 6 "flash crash," when the Dow Jones Industrial Average collapsed 700 points in minutes, the ... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703882304575465990082237642.html
I didn't read the article but wasn't the "real" problem during May 6th that the NYSE's technology was the (least modern)/(most archaic) compared to other exchanges. For many stocks, the NYSE was one penny or more bid over the offer price for stocks at other exchanges thereby creating an arbitrage that the HFT's were seizing upon? :eek:
the real problem is that US have too many exchanges. and they all trade same shit. why do we need 10-15-20 ECN's,national exchange,international exchange,exchange in pretty much every city to trade a fucking same NYSE stock?