The same thing happened back in 07, market was already under heavy selling pressure... not as much as today maybe down around 300 on the dow and all of a sudden it just plunged down another 5%. that was also the stops kicking in from the computers. When you see PG or other stocks go down 30% its just pure lunacy. Be thankful to have witnessed today's historic ride people, today is going into the history books ; )... if you lost money at least you have a fun story .... because what is the world without humor
The OP asked about the rally after the sell off. I to believe this is the real story. Sell offs by nature are quick and painful. But there was a 700 point rally in minutes , this is unheard of. If you listen to the audio of the S&P 500 pit, once it bottomed there were absolutely no offers, the market bid up almost 30 handles to find the first offer. Hard to believe that after all that selling the offers disappeared. Somebody puked out a lot of longs.....PPT/ FED