“The Internalizer and the Market Maker” — a 28-second message scrolls past on a ticker and reads out the following quote from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission & U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, Findings Regarding the Market Event of May 6, 2010, released four months after the flash crash. The Internalizer and the Market Maker are yet to be named.

Context:
FC 15:36:46.000: one millisecond of stock data from May 6th, 2010 – also known as the “Flash Crash”. A total of 379 trades were executed within a single millisecond.

Extract:
“Detailed analysis of trade and order data revealed that one large internalizer (as a seller) and one large market maker (as a buyer) were party to over 50% of the share volume of broken trades, and for more than half of this volume they were counterparties to each other (i.e., 25% of the broken trade share volume was between this particular seller and buyer).”

Voice by: Blake Hargreaves

From: U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission & U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, Findings Regarding the Market Event of May 6, 2010 (SEPTEMBER 30, 2010), 69.