Flash Crash

Just after 2pm eastern time on Monday, the CME/NYMEX (GLOBEX) markets for U.S. crude, gasoline and heating oil futures shut down.  Data feeds to trading terminals ceased. The timing was bad.  It was a half-hour before the close.  Brokers that have been jacked into their terminals for six years (since the launch of “parallel electronic trading”) rushed to the usually comatose oil-futures pit to execute orders that couldn't be completed electronically.   Humans traded with humans. (“It’s Alive!”)  Thinking about how this must have played out, I just can’t get the final scene of Surrogates, the 2009 Bruce Willis movie out of my head.  All those traders in their pajamas walking dazed into the pit.