Citigroup Denies Human Error Contributed to Wall Street Tumble

Thursday's dramatic drop in the stock market and subsequent recovery left some theorizing it was human error that led to the Wall Street drama.

Thursday's dramatic drop in the stock market and subsequent recovery left some theorizing it was human error that led to the Wall Street drama.

According to the New York Post, the Dow Jones dropped a record 1,010 points, with 762 of those points falling off in only 23 minutes:

A theory that had begun to gain some traction yesterday was that a trader at Citigroup, seeking to place an order for 16 million shares in a miniature exchange that mimics the performance of the Standard & Poor's 500 index, accidentally keyed in an order for 16 billion shares of the securities, known on Wall Street as "E-minis."

Said one broker, "E-minis had volume all over the place" during the mini crash. "Volume was trending up 20 times normal."

But while many people on Wall Street said the blunder originated out of Citi, a bank spokesman said, "At this point, we have no evidence that Citi was involved in any erroneous transaction."

As of Friday morning, there was no definitive word on a potential error, The Street reports, though there is a belief that computer program trading also could have been a factor.

Regardless, the aftermath of Thursday's activity does raise some alarms as to how much a potential human error can contribute to market and bank value.