While news producers scramble to put together a segment explaining today’s stock market crash, they will inevitably try to tie it to larger unrest. And there’s a lot to choose from: the unrest and instability in Greece, the Gulf oil spill, and maybe even the immigration law in Arizona deserve quality reportage. But according to Matt Nesto’s reporting on CNBC, the real reason behind the sudden and severe dip in the Dow Index might have been a typo. 
 
 According to some, the market crash (that at one point saw the Dow Index fall as much 10%) may have been sparked by a sudden and significant sell in shares of Procter and Gamble. Nesto reports that, according to multiple sources, somebody hit a “B” instead of an “M” on the keyboard, selling a billion shares rather than a million. Huh. Nesto’s report follows: 
 
 You see that below me that it says that trading error at a major firm. We’ve got multiple sources saying that that major firm that reportedly made the trading error is Citigroup. We’ve of course been in touch with Citigroup and they say they have no evidence of a bad trade but they are investigation the situation. I would just repeat that we have had more than one source pointing to Citigroup as the firm that did or issue the errant trade we’ve talked about the b entered vs the m the billion versus the million. 
 
 There are a million reasons why a market behaves one way or another, and according to CNBC, Citigroup maintains that they have not uncovered an irregularities in their orders. Investigations behind the sudden crash (which rebounded to a loss of only 3%) will continue, and some are positing a more mysterious “computer glitch.” 
 
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 Update: According to CNN Radio reporter Lisa Desjardins, the tech error in question may have been on NASDAQ’s end. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 For a more complete analysis, check out Geekosystem’s rundown: ||||| Combine one part nervous traders, one part Greek crisis and one part trader error. Stir in one part central bank complacency. Bring to boil. Panic. 
 
 That combination produced one of the wildest days ever in financial markets, with the Dow Jones industrial average at one point down almost 1,000 points while the euro sank to its lowest level in more than a year, The New York Times’s Floyd Norris reports in his High & Low Finance column. There were substantial declines in emerging markets whose economies had seemed to be booming and in developed markets fearful of renewed recessions. 
 
 Even though a substantial part of the worst plunge appeared to be linked to a trader error — one $40 stock fell for a time to one penny — prices had fallen around the world before such mistakes began to occur. 
 
 It appears that investors are again growing more hesitant to own assets such as stocks and bonds, particularly since many now cost far more than they did only a few months ago. Another sharp retrenchment by investors, consumers and businesses could threaten the current global recovery by choking off financing and new orders for companies. For much of the last 14 months, the prices of risky assets around the world have been rising rapidly. That recovery, from lows reached in March 2009 amid talk of a new Great Depression, both reflected and encouraged a revival in economic activity. Manufacturers in most countries this week reported rapidly growing order books. 
 
 The most recent recession was made in America, and to a large extent it was unmade here as well. If it was the subprime mortgage market and other credit excesses that sent markets reeling, it was also a willingness of the American government, including the Federal Reserve Board, to plow money in when fears were at their highest that helped to bring those markets and economic activity back. 
 
 For the last several months, worries have been alternately rising and receding that the next crisis would be made in Europe, where Greece has faced the possibility of default. Europe and the International Monetary Fund have announced plans for a bailout, but there have also been riots in Greece amid anger over the steep budget cuts being forced on the country. 
 
 On Thursday, Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank, said at a news conference that the bank’s governing council had not even discussed the possibility of purchasing government bonds. That was taken as a disappointment by some traders, who had hoped the E.C.B. would follow the Fed’s lead in spreading liquidity around if conditions grew worse. 
 
 Instead, fears are growing that Europe, which is worried that Greece could be followed by Portugal and Spain, will follow the pattern laid down by the United States government in 2007, when officials offered frequent reassurances that the subprime mortgage problem was “contained,” but delayed in taking the bold action that finally did stop the panic. 
 
 The height of panic on Thursday was reached shortly after lunchtime in the United States. First some currencies began to fall rapidly, with the euro suffering especially against the Japanese yen. That could be an indication that some large traders are unwinding positions. It has been popular to borrow yen at very low interest rates and then use the money to speculate in higher yielding assets denominated in other currencies. Anyone unwinding such a trade would buy yen to repay the loan. 
 
 Then, within a few minutes, the American stock market appeared to be collapsing. Some of the decline was real, but another part of it was simply trading gone awry. Temporary plunges in the price of Procter & Gamble and 3M, the former Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, cost the Dow about 300 points, and appeared to be the result of glitches, not intentional sell orders. Similarly, Accenture, a large consulting firm, fell from more than $40 a share to one penny. 
 
 By the close of the day, the Dow was down 347.80 points, or 3.2 percent, to 10,520.32. 
 
 There were also substantial declines in most major European and Asian indexes. In Greece, however, the stock market put on a small rebound after falling to a 13-month low on Wednesday. 
 
 Europe faces many obstacles in trying to deal with the growing crisis there. The E.C.B., which handles monetary policy for the 16 countries in the euro zone, has fewer powers than the Fed does, and there is no Europe-wide government with powers to act quickly. Even now, after months of talking, the Greek bailout has not been approved by all whose approval is needed. The German parliament is expected to approve it on Friday. 
 
 Moreover, the American crisis developed before budget deficits spiraled upward. Coming up with cash now would be harder, a fact Mr. Trichet pointed to when he called on European governments to cut their budget deficits. 
 
 Spending large amounts of cash to bail out European governments is unlikely to be popular with voters in countries that are not in trouble, but a failure to do so could threaten numerous financial institutions around the continent. 
 
 A traditional way to reduce debt is to devalue currencies, which leaves the outstanding debt worth less. Countries in the euro zone cannot do that, which is one reason Greece is in such difficulty. 
 
 But some investors seem to expect that eventually worldwide inflation will form a significant part of the solution, enabling governments and other debtors to pay back loans with currencies worth less than when the loan was made. Over the last three days, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 has lost 6 percent of its value, the price of 30-year Inflation-indexed Treasury security has risen by almost 4 percent. 
 
 There is no way to know, of course, whether this week’s jitters will be put aside as more good economic news is released, or whether Europe’s woes will create a repeat of the gradually growing panic that engulfed American markets not that long ago. 
 
 If the latter is the case, this could be another one of those times when markets move from one extreme to the other. In the fall of 2008, the collapse of Lehman Brothers sent investors fleeing. The following spring, hopes that the bailouts and stimulus plans were working helped to begin a strong bull market in nearly every asset category. 
 
 If this is another turning point, some of the winners will be those who, by luck or vision, managed to sell securities while the selling was easy. On Tuesday, Beazer Homes, a builder that was almost given up for dead in 2009 — when its shares traded for less than 25 cents — managed to raise $350 million selling new shares and new bonds. The money will go to refinance debt that otherwise could have forced the company into bankruptcy. 
 
 By the close on Thursday, investors who bought shares at that offering, paying $5.81, had lost almost 10 percent of their money as the stock closed at $5.25. 
 
 All this is taking place as the Senate debates financial reform amid considerable public hostility to banks. That no doubt will lead some on Wall Street to say that the markets are warning against making regulation too harsh, but the wild gyrations also serve as a reminder that the efficient markets hypothesis is not a very good model of what actually happens. 
 
 Markets turn out to be very bad at assessing values under some circumstances. They were far too optimistic is 2006, and ridiculously pessimistic in early 2009. 
 
 That is not a reason to get rid of markets, if only because any alternative, such as letting judges and government officials set values, would probably be worse. But it does serve as a counterpoint to the infatuation with markets that led to the creation of a virtually unregulated shadow financial system. Those who believe in regulation will point to that, and say that if this wild ride continues, it will provide further evidence that markets need adult supervision. 
 
 Go to High & Low Finance Column from The New York Times » ||||| Crawl of outlinks from wikipedia.org started March, 2016. These files are currently not publicly accessible. Properties of this collection. It has been several years since the last time we did this. For this collection, several things were done: 1. Turned off duplicate detection. This collection will be complete, as there is a good chance we will share the data, and sharing data with pointers to random other collections, is a complex problem. 2. For the first time, did all the different wikis. The original runs were just against the enwiki. This one, the seed list was built from all 865 collections. ||||| The stock market plunged Thursday in a harrowing five-minute selloff that appeared to be triggered by a breakdown of trading systems. After dropping nearly 1,000 points, the market rebounded but still closed down 3.2%, leaving Wall Street struggling to figure out what happened. 
 
 PM Report: Stocks Plunge, Fear Returns 9:41 The News Hub panel -- Neal Lipschutz and David Wessel in New York and Dave Kansas in London -- discuss today's market plunge. 
 
 Investors already were jittery about the ripple effects of the crisis in Greece when the market went into free fall at 2:42 p.m. By 2:47, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had crossed 10000 in the biggest intraday point drop in its history. By 3:07, the market had regained 500 points, ultimately staggering to a close at 10520.32, down 347.80 points. 
 
 The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said they were working with other regulators to review "unusual trading activity." The major U.S. stock exchanges said they were looking for trading glitches and examining potentially erroneous trades in multiple stocks. Major exchanges said they will cancel erroneous trades that occurred during the selloff. 
 
 Dow Regains Some Ground View Slideshow Getty Images A man walks outside the New York Stock Exchange. 
 
 Multiple stocks, ranging from Accenture PLC to Boston Beer Co., momentarily lost nearly 100% of their value, changing hands for just one penny. Exchange-traded funds, which are index funds that trade like stocks on exchanges, were also temporarily vaporized. The $9.5 billion iShares Russell 1000 Value Index Fund went from $59 to around 8 cents in the blink of an eye. 
 
 "It happened so quickly, it was like a torpedo," said Scott Redler, chief strategic officer at T3 Capital Management, a hedge fund. "It was mayhem." 
 
 Unnerved traders frantically searched for an explanation, scouring the trade blotters for clues to the cause. Many pinned the blame on an erroneous trade for a basket of stocks which caused shares for companies such as Procter & Gamble Co., one of the market's most stable blue-chip stocks, to fall 35% in two minutes. 
 
 The market was already down some 500 points when the selloff began. Televisions showed images of standoffs between Greek police and protesters, and the European Central Bank declined to step up its effort to stabilize government debt markets. 
 
 Traders immediately said a market glitch must have contributed to the decline. They theorized that high-frequency trading firms, which use computer programs to trade and account for about two-thirds of the market's overall volume, might have contributed to the speed of the decline, although they offered no specifics. 
 
 Several high-frequency firms, including Tradebot Systems Inc., which says it often accounts for 5% of the U.S. market's volume, stopped trading when the market grew volatile. With these traders on the sidelines, there were fewer potential buyers, which may have contributed to the plunge. 
 
 —Jacob Bunge contributed to this article. 
 
 Write to Tom Lauricella at tom.lauricella@wsj.com
– What's known in the business as a "fat finger" trade may have been responsible for yesterday's stock market chaos, analysts say. Multiple sources believe a trader at a major firm—possibly Citigroup—hit a "B" instead of an "M" while trading Procter & Gamble shares, selling a billion shares instead of a million, and sending the Dow Jones on a panicky rollercoaster ride. Major exchanges are also examining possible erroneous trades in multiple stocks that triggered glitches in the trading system, notes the Wall Street Journal. Traders were already nervous and the Greek crisis had been sending prices downward even before the panic, the New York Times notes. The plunge "happened so quickly, it was like a torpedo," said a chief strategic officer at a top hedge fund. "It was mayhem." The lesson from yesterday's chaos should be that "any market can fail temporarily," writes Felix Salmon at Reuters, predicting that the panic that hit markets yesterday will result in "increased volatility and risk aversion."