With this is flash mini-crash today, precipitated by the bogus Associated Press Tweet about President Obama injured by explosions at the White House, we must now presume that these social media incidents are now part of the firmament and we have to accept them and profit from them.
We know that technology has outrun the regulators. We know that the number of outlets that can be used to release information has now become far more bountiful than the old days. We have to realize that the machines will kick into action on these kinds of mistakes and that you will lose money if you are treating everything as business as usual.
We also know that anything and everything can be hacked.
So, we know that we need to have stop limit orders that make it so we are cut off from the downside instead of selling things at outrageously horrible prices like so many did today. It must be a ritual.
And you must have some bids underneath if you just get lucky. Maybe you renew them every day. You want Procter (PG) on a non-report day? You have a big in underneath, well underneath, because you have to expect that these things will happen. EXPECT. They are going to be with us in increasing numbers, especially now that we see how much could be made by hacking Twitter.
There will be big investigations how this happened. There will be lots of hand-wringing about the ease with which the market can be manipulated.
Who cares?
Can the stop loss orders.
Put in stop limit orders.
Bid down underneath each day, betting that this stuff could happen. And when it does, cash the lottery ticket quickly. What a win.