‘Lose $1 Million in 2 Seconds’: Market Chaos Rocks Trading Desks

It was 1 a.m. in London when the markets jarred Michael Brown awake. He had his phone next to his bed, and it had started pinging him with alerts, just “buzzing and buzzing and buzzing”: Brent crude is over $100 a barrel; over $110; Nasdaq futures sink 2%; the Nikkei plunges 5%.

So Brown, a senior strategist at the brokerage Pepperstone, jumped out of bed, fired up his computer and started answering the flood of calls he was getting from jittery clients in Asia. “A bit of panic was starting to set in,” he says.