HFT quote bombardment blamed for flash crash in May

Traders continue to be haunted by the May 6 ‘flash crash’ – when US equity markets tumbled nearly 1,000 points in an unprecedented half-hour period – and they won’t be reassured by one of the latest attempts to explain it, which claims the trigger was a deliberate attempt to overwhelm creaking market infrastructure.

The story has been pieced together by US-based market data provider Nanex, using archived quote and trade information for all US equity, options and futures exchanges – a proprietary