(Business Insider) Blame the robots. That was the common explanation among Wall Streeters on Monday after the biggest selloff ever in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Machine-based traders were commonly blamed for the drop, which included a ramp up in the VIX, which measures volatility, and a steep selloff in equities, which hit Monday afternoon in New York.
“The trading floor was relatively quiet until the market took a further hit at 3 pm,” Vincent Kondaveeti, a financials sector sales specialist at Credit Suisse, said in a note. “It felt like the machines took over but we saw (human) investors buying the dip not only in financials but also other sectors.”