Robots don't have to take over the world when they've got sharemarkets
in their clutches already.
Unlike a mere mortal trading, there isn't even a broker between
machine and, well, machine. All that stands between them is a fee the
Australian Stock Exchange collects.
Self-automated algorithms can generate 150 trades in the blink of an
eye and, unlike ordinary investors or even the big funds, have been
given the ultimate privilege of plugging straight into the ASX's
computer. They're the ultimate inside traders.
Since the one-minute massacre of QBE Insurance more than two years ago
by a rogue robotic trading program, all that has changed is that now
it would take a mere millisecond. And it wouldn't stop at one stock.
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The share price was savaged from $15.70 to less than a cent before
anybody could do anything.
An even scarier incident recently on Wall Street, where price swings
have become increasingly wilder, showed what th...