FT269

On 6 May this year, the financial markets freaked. The Dow Jones index (which tracks the overall value of key stocks on the US market) crashed by 1,000 points in just a few minutes, creating what has become known as the “Flash Crash” and wiping billions of dollars off the value of the New York stock market. Now most people’s picture of a stock exchange involves a bunch of pushy geezers in red braces shouting and waving their arms about, and while that might have been the case in the 1980s, today’s markets are very different. These days, stock markets are high tech and virtual.