Splash Crash

Categories: Trading

A “splash crash” is a flash crash that “splashes” over into other markets, and we encourage everyone to try saying that five times fast.

Technically, a splash crash has never happened, but some warn that it’s only a matter of time before it does. So...what is it, really? It’s basically an input-output overload in one financial sector—say, the stock market—that spills over into other sectors, like bonds, currency exchanges, etc.

When too much trade activity happens in too short of a period of time, all of the algorithms and computer sensors and whatnot freak out and freeze the system until all the buy-sell orders can be matched up and recorded, and peace reigns in the kingdom once again. This is what happened in the flash crash of 2010, a fun little event in which the Dow dropped 1,000 points in a matter of hours before recovering several hundred of those points in another matter of hours. The fear is that, one of these times, now that all of our financial markets and technologies are so interconnected, interrelated, and interdependent, the whole overloading-and-freezing thing won’t be confined to one financial area.

But folks aren’t just sitting around on their hands waiting for splash crashes to splash crash down around them. New security measures were implemented after the 2010 scare to help lessen the likelihood of a complete financial market meltdown happening. The SEC instituted something called “circuit breakers,” which function pretty much exactly like the circuit breakers in our house. When too much activity—or current—is detected, the circuit breaker flips and that specific section of the market loses power until the culprit can be identified and dealt with. So far, these circuit breakers have tripped several times, but no splash crash has ensued. So for now, at least, it looks like they’re doing what they were designed to do.

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Finance: What was the Market Crash of 19...1 Views

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and finance Allah shmoop What was the market crash of

00:05

1929 aren't people while there was cheap and easy credit

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and that's what the crash was really about Greed and

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a big bad bear market nobody could have imagined happening

00:18

at the time right Nonprofessional retail investors were allowed to

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borrow some 90% of their investment portfolio to go buy

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new stocks beyond the stocks they already owned So quick

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Math If someone invested $1000 of their own hard earned

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savings and the stock tripled like it did in the

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mid twenties for a lot of easy money yeah well

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then that $1000 would have become $3000 in a very

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short period of time Great but in fact margin rules

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were almost non existent in era it was coming to

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allow investors to have 334 even five times they're invested

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equity as borrowed margin or set another way on an

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initial $1000 invested Many investors were stupidly allowed to buy

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$5000 worth of stocks So really volatile right If things

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go the wrong way it hurts But let's take a

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simpler approach If an investor had been allowed to margin

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there account up to 90% of its value like 50%

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is generally the maximum today that you could borrow Then

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that investor on $1000 of their own invested capital could

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have purchased $1900 worth of that stock that tripled So

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doing the math three times 1900 gets you What is

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that $5700 You pay back the $900 of margin that

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you borrowed against yourself and you'll have netted something like

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$4800 in profits albeit a little bit last because you'll

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have paid interest to the brokerage's that allowed you to

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borrow money in this manner That's a margin interests So

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in the margin case while the $1000 ofyour invested capital

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maybe 4.8 times your money rather of any paltry three

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times your money had you not been leveraged and that's

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way more dough to crow about right And in those

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days well that extra $1800 would have bought you like

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a house So everything was great 90 50 1926 27

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28 when the market mostly generally went up and provided

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easy money for the well heeled invest who could play

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the game and everyone was incentivized to keep the party

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rolling Yes that's a flapper girl Brokerages could charge fat

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commissions on transactions and nobody complained Why Well because the

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markets rise more than eight for those commissions Brokerages could

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also charge big interest rates on borrowed margin because the

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markets rise Masked all those costs and everything ended up

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sweet and beautiful is the prince married the princess and

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they went off to their castle in the clouds Oh

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but wait Then reality struck One day a not so

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kindly old woman offered Snow White the apple she bit

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and the market went down down down Such that panic

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selling ensued and more or less Everyone who was on

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the hook to pay back borrowed money in the form

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of margin had their loans called immediately by the kindly

02:48

smiling brokerages as they more or less lost while mohr

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than everything meaning that not only did the investors lose

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all of their investments but the brokerages who had underwritten

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those loans themselves went bankrupt because the stocks went down

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so far that even the margin limit covenants were violated

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That is on the stock purchased $4000 with the $900

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a margin That $1000 worth of stock ended up being

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worth well $500 or maybe a lot less so even

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if the brokerages sold every share of that original $1000

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investment now worth only $500 While the $500 in original

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value remaining didn't even come close to covering the $900

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in margin the brokerages clients took out in loans in

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the first place So yeah it sounds like the crazy

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maddening crowds at work and the crowds back then were

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mad Everyone was buying on margin and if you weren't

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well then sucker you were just yet another sucker hauling

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bricks or ice or railroad ties for a living Life

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was way easier when you could just phone in a

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stop order in you know play golf all day So

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this was bad and 1/2 and it's part of the

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process of investors panicking They lost trust in the financial

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system of America Many investors then wanted to sleep on

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a pile of their hard earned saved $20 bills so

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they ran to the bank on Mass and asked for

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their money back They wanted to withdraw all their money

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from the banks And guess what The banks didn't have

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the money sitting around because they loaned it out for

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mortgages and car loans and horse loans or over the

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head back then So the frame then was a failed

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stock market Lack of trust in the banking system in

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America no credit then offered Teo Well pretty much anyone

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You can imagine what America would be like if we

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didn't have credit cards alive and well and no adult

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supervision to get this country out of the deep financial

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hole that I dug well along came FDR With the

04:35

New Deal he primed the pump and creating federal guarantees

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for banking deposits upto a little certain amount like FBI

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see limits of 100 grand and change today He also

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enforced vastly stricter regulations on banks brokerages and pretty much

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anything financial such that going forward this country ran a

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dramatically Mohr conservative balance sheets and investment people had to

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disclose well pretty much everything The result Well gradually greed

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came to overtake fear again and in mid thirties or

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so the market slowly trundled northward again It's what I

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look like And then everything gave rise Teo Well this

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really beautiful sight Welcome to America

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