by Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Wall Street on Parade
Today marks the sixth anniversary of the confidence-draining “Flash Crash” of May 6, 2010 when the Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly plunged 998 points, with hundreds of stocks momentarily losing 60 percent or more of their share price.
The public was promised a credible investigation. It never materialized because, for one thing, there was no Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) to enable regulators to pinpoint exactly which securities firms were gaming the system. The public was then promised a Consolidated Audit Trail. But six long years and many smaller Flash Crashes later, there is still no Consolidated Audit Trail.
The public was also promised an in-depth investigation by Congress into the role that high frequency trading is playing in our markets. That hasn’t happened either. Instead, the stock exchanges are still deeply in bed with the high frequency traders.