Hello Brutus,

Thanks for providing the list of trades during the first few minutes. This could be due to fat fingers, putting in the wrong value for the order. But, this could be just plain old manipulation.

The question raised would be:

- Where were all the market checks and balances. As I understand it, there are quite a few levels in the sytem to catch errors or "strange" orders, starting with one own's brokerage firm. Even if you do on-line trading there somebody (or computers with sophisticated software) to check the orders before they are sent out to the "floor' for trading. Then, there are stock exchanges with a sharp eyes (supposedly) to detect unusual price movement and could order a halt while waiting for some explanations from the company, or from the originators of the trades. A drop almost 50% just have caught somebody's attention. And there is the SEC in the US and OSC in Ontario. But, they would take the role of the enforcers or prosecutors following a violation of the rules.

- So, the damage has been done, would it be a rigorous procudure to contact all the Anonymous (faceless) traders for their expalnations, especially the originator of the trade order (e.g. sell order at market or at some "unreasonable" low price)?

If the explanations are not satisfactory then all trades during that period should be cancelled to preserve (at least some) integrity of the (stock exchange) system.

In my opinion, it's not good enough just to say it's an "Oops moment" and "to bad it was done" and do nothing, or try to sweep the event under the carpet.

Anomymous trading should be banned. Or, at least expose them if they appear to be carrying out strange activities (e.g. selling/buying 100 shares to keep a lid on the SP, or to march it down). Market manipulators should not be allowed to do this kind of (shady) activity for their own gain, at the expense of our investment with our hard-earned money.

goldhunter