Chicago Board of Trade (CBoT) and regulators are investigating whether a trade that sent the mini-Dow contact spiralling on the morning of 3 July was intentional or a mistake.
CBoT officials said they are working internally as a self-regulatory organisation and with Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in examining a major sell order that sent the September mini-Dow index futures down 584 points between 9.38 am and 9.39 am. There was also a 576-point drop within that minute in the December 2003 mini-sized Dow futures contract which, prior to that, was trading in a narrow 31-point range.
Initially, industry sources believed it was a "fat finger trade" or...