Claire Merchlinsky for BI
Imagine you're a hedge-fund manager who's trying to gain an edge. To maximize returns, you decide to install the latest technology that allows a computer to interpret the changing winds of the market and make thousands of orders in milliseconds. The program helps boost your fund for a while, but the initial excitement turns to dread as you watch the program go rogue and buy hundreds of millions of shares in less than an hour. Your firm scrambles to stop the trades, but they can't, and suddenly you're facing massive losses, all because of a poorly installed algorithm.