"Trading Glitch" = a very good excuse for very bad trades. I'm not implying this happened, but if I was an analyst at Knight Capital and we just lost $440 million, I'd blame it on a "trading glitch".
They're calling it a "glitch" to suggest something unavoidable, a problem that could have happened to anyone.
It's same vein of bullshit we heard in 2008 "We couldn't possibly have known!" and more recently with the string of "rogue traders".
In every case, its just a bunch of folks who don't want to take responsibility for their gambles when they lose.
They gambled on an algorithm and everything related to engineering and operating it.
On some level or another they failed spectacularly and they're calling it a "glitch" - a minor malfunction, a transient error, a spurious little blip.
Say what?
$440 million dollars pissed away over the course of 45 minutes is not a glitch by any stretch of the imagination.
It's a failure of epic proportions at multiple levels. Failure to test, to review, to react and finally failure to own up.
Market makers gamble on their ability to set spreads that will produce a profit.
They're using code to generate spreads, execute head fakes and stuff quotes to their advantage. They're "players" as much as anyone.