May 6 opened as a volatile day of trading in U.S. markets. In the hours before the crash, bad news about the European debt crisis increased price volatility and led to a broad decline in equity prices. As noted in the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and U.S. Securities and Exchange Committee’s (SEC) joint report on the crash, against the backdrop of increased uncertainty and negative market sentiment, at 2:32 p.m. EST an unusually large automated sell order was initiated in the S&P 500 E-mini market, a futures contract traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Normally, such a large order would not be executed all at once, but rather would be spread out, possibly over several hours. However, on May 6, the sell order was executed with unusual rapidity through an automatic algorithm that took into account only trading volume, disregarding prices.