In interviews with more than two dozen fund managers, bankers and traders, no clear cause emerged for the plunge in price. Market players were unable to identify any single bank or fund orchestrating a massive sale to liquidate positions, not even an errant trade that triggered panic selling, as seen in the equities flash crash last May.
Rather, the picture pieced together from interviews on Thursday and Friday is one of a richly priced commodities market — raw goods have been on a five-month winning tear over all other major investment classes — hit by a flurry of negative factors that individually could be absorbed but cumulatively triggered a maelstrom.
Computerized trading kicked in when key price levels were reached, accelerating the fall.
“It was a domino effect,” said Dominic Cagliotti, a New York-based oil options broker.
via Special report: What really triggered oil’s greatest rout | Reuters.
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