I was listening to Tom Sullivan, and he says that excuse is “Bull”! He didn’t say exactly what he thought caused it, but that a mistake by a trader wouldn’t cause that crash.
Sounds like someone’s making up excuses for some reason.
As far as automated stops go the amount of stock may trigger them quicker than the amount of money. Somebody pointed out that they would have had to short sell a bunch in order to get the amount of stock needed to do the trade. Also a billion dollar transaction should need special approval of more than just the trader.
Not buying the BS on this one.