On Thursday Canada’s investment industry regulator, IIROC, proposed new safety measures intended to prevent future flash crashes like the one that happened on May 6.
Existing “circuit breakers” halt trading when the entire market rises or falls extremely quickly within a short period of time, but trading in individual stocks must be reviewed manually. This new proposal would allow trading to automatically be halted for a five minute period on any stock that appears to be subject to a “flash trading” scenario.
The plan is to prevent the extreme investor losses we saw in May, when some stocks lost up to 99% of their value in minutes.
IIROC has invited public comments on the proposal during the next 60 days. Read the press release here.