On political broadcasts I have been listening to various finance "experts" gravely discussing how stock markets will respond to a hung parliament, another election, proportional representation, and so on. One might get the impression that markets are shaped by intelligent, well-informed people carefully pondering economic verities. The reality is somewhat different. The New York Stock Exchange plunged by 1000 points on Thursday and then recovered 16 minutes later. Now, two days later, nobody has a clue why it happened - except that it was possibly a computer glitch. Here's the story ... but it could easily have been headlined "Capitalism destroyed because of program error".
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/08/business/08trading.html?th&emc=th
