I've read that some 85% of all trading is now done by some sort of programmed computer strategy and 15% by retail guys like us. Gotta be real smart to figure out how to beat that setup. With all that programmed stuff hitting us in the face, I think it's reasonable to assume that the quants have been busy for years figuring out how to one-up the next guy and then jiggering it into some black box to see how well it can ring the cash register.

In that regard, that code supposedly stolen from Goldham Sachs with the company's startling acknowledgement that it could be used to manipulate markets is probably the tip of a huge iceberg of similar quant-designed codes in use out there designed to screw you royally. Maybe what's going on today is reflective of just that.

There must be more than one big-gun trader from some fund out there sweating bullets that the cat is now out of the bag and the US Congress my want an investigation. Don't laugh. Could happen. Manipulation? Who would have thought.

To me, just more evidence that you have to be one connected dude to have an inkling of what today, tomorrow or the day after will bring.