Market regulators still aren’t offering any conclusive explanation for the unusual trading activity that gripped financial markets on Thursday, although they are now pointing at the multi-market environment as a possible factor.

Rumours of technical glitches or major trading errors have been shot down by some of the exchanges themselves, although they have cancelled certain trades that took place during the period of most intense volatility.

Meanwhile, regulators say they are continuing to investigate the episode. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission released another joint statement on Friday, saying, “We are continuing to review the unusual trading activity that took place briefly yesterday afternoon to pinpoint its cause and contributing factors.”

The U.S. regulators report that they have been in touch with their counterparts in other jurisdictions, and that their market oversight units, are reviewing trading and market data from the exchanges, self regulatory organizations and market participants.

“We are scrutinizing the extent to which disparate trading conventions and rules across various markets may have contributed to the spike in volatility,” they said.

“Thursday’s unusual trading activity included extreme volatility for a number of individual securities. This is inconsistent with the effective functioning of our capital markets and we will make whatever structural or other changes are needed,” they added.

IE