The ‘flash crash’ of May 6 could ultimately help international markets, provided the right lessons are learned from what went wrong, according to Christian Katz, chief executive of the SIX-Swiss Exchange.
But he said the implications of the crash – when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 573 points in five minutes – were in many ways more disturbing than the Lehman Brothers default. When Lehman collapsed nearly two years ago, the Dow lost a mere 2.9%.
Katz warned that the findings of enquiries into the flash crash needed to be made public to restore confidence in global markets. “If an explanation exists, it has not been made public,” he said.
Speaking on the high frequency trading panel at the...