A stock-trading algorithm gone awry appears to have thrown American stock markets into chaos on Wednesday, following a surge of volatile trading after the opening bell. Financial news sites have pinpointed the problem to Knight Capital Group. The brokerage firm's algorithm appears to have triggered purchases and sales of millions of shares for 30-45 minutes.
This cost them approximately $10 million per minute for a total loss of approximately $440 million dollars. In other related news the company's stock closed with a single day loss of over 60 percent.