Algorithmic Pricing On Amazon 'Could Spark Flash Crash' 274
DerekduPreez writes "Sellers on Amazon's retail site are increasingly using high-speed algorithmic trading tools to automatically set prices, which could lead to a malfunction similar to the 2010 flash crash. According to the Financial Times, prices on Amazon's website change as often as every 15 minutes, where sellers are using tools traditionally developed by data miners at banks to ensure that their prices are always below their rivals'. Third-party software is allowing sellers to detect a competitor's price and automatically undercut that price by, for example, £1. However, this could lead to a situation similar to the U.S. flash crash, where algorithmic trading was blamed for stock prices falling to near zero and then bouncing back within 20 minutes." At Slashdot's sister site for Business Intelligence, Nick Kolakowski has some more information on this possibility.
It sounds like a good deal for the customer (Score:5, Funny)
But if I buy a paperback copy of "Fifty Shades of Grey" for only $0.10 due to a flash crash in autogenerated stock prices, I metaphysically lose, society loses, civilization loses. The seller still wins, Mephistopheles wins, evil triumphs.