Two years ago this weekend, the now infamous Flash Crash saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average drop nearly 600 points in a matter of minutes, followed by an even faster rebound moments later. At the time, Institutional Investor Editor Michael Peltz was knee-deep in notes for a story about high frequency trading – the ensuing 6,500-word feature, called ‘Inside the Machine,’ went on to win the Society of American Editors and Writers’ Best in Business award for excellence in explanatory journalism and the American Society of Business Publication Editors’ prestigious Stephen Barr Award.
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At 2:45p.m. on Thursday, May 6, George (Gus) Sauter received a frantic call from one of his traders to get in front of a Bloomberg terminal. The Dow Jones industrial average, already down 3.9 percent that day on fears about Greece, was in free fall. In just five minutes the index plunged 573 points. Less than two minutes later, the Dow had rocketed back up 543 points, going on to finish the day down 3.2 percent.