The “flash-crash” that surprised European stock markets on Monday morning was due to an error made by a Citigroup trader, the American bank said in a press release. Within minutes, a wave of selling swamped the markets. The flagship index of the Stockholm Stock Exchange, the OMX, for example, lost 8% in just 5 minutes before recovering.
Behind this episode, therefore, was human error. A Citigroup trader in London has “made a mistake while entering a transaction”, says the group. This error was spotted and corrected following a few minutes, adds the American company.
This crash briefly caused 300 billion euros in market capitalization to soar. Citigroup is currently in talks with stock market regulators over the blunder, sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
