I read an article in Zero Hedge a while ago about how the “flash crash” in the stock market was a direct result of “quote stuffing”, a fraudulent practice designed to manipulate stock prices in predictable directions enabled by the over-automation of the market through algorithmic trading.
Recently I stumbled upon a daily blog dedicated to revealing patterns in stock data that aims to visually show patterns that are most-likely intentional and purposeful – not the truly random movements of normal market chaos. They call these visual phenomena “crop circles”.