Financial Regulatory Forum

– The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –

By Nicholas Paisner

LONDON, May 7 (Reuters Breakingviews) – The cancellation of share trades by a stock exchange has a third-world feel about it. But Thursday’s unfeasibly large swings in some U.S. stocks prompted NASDAQ to annul trades printed at seemingly silly prices. In one of the most frenzied sessions in living memory the equity market fell victim to a combination of fear, human error and — above all — technical malfunction.

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Was it a trading error, or the tipping point of market anxiety? A range of potential factors has drawn scrutiny after the record 1,000 point plunge and rebound in the Dow Jones industrial average on Thursday.

While the regulators try to figure out what happended and how to respond, here is some commentary on the fall:

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