Washington, 3 September 2010

The U.S. futures regulator is reviewing data from Nanex LLC that appears to show some traders used "quote-stuffing" algorithms on May 6 to try to prevent others from trading on the day of the stock market's mysterious "flash crash," a CFTC commissioner said on Thursday.

"If traders are flooding the market with orders with the intention of slowing other traders down, then we should consider addressing this under new disruptive trading practices authority," said Scott O'Malia, who heads up the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's technology advisory committee, which discussed the issue in July.

The new Wall Street reform law gives the CFTC new powers to prohibit practices the agency deems are disruptive to fair trading.

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