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In January 2021, a struggling video game retailer became the centre of one of the most dramatic market battles of the internet age. GameStop, a brick-and-mortar chain many investors had written off, turned into a symbol of rebellion, risk, greed, anger, and collective power. The story had all the ingredients of a financial thriller: hedge funds with huge short positions, retail traders armed with commission-free apps, Reddit posts that read like war cries, and a share price t

For two days in October 2008, the centre of global finance was not New York, London, or Frankfurt. It was a carmaker in Wolfsburg. Volkswagen, a company known for Golfs, Beetles, and industrial steadiness, became the most valuable company on Earth. Its share price ripped from around €200 to more than €1,000 in a matter of days. Hedge funds that had bet against it found themselves trapped in one of the most violent squeezes in market history. At the centre was Porsche, the spo

A global market can look invincible until it meets one determined trader, a fast connection, and software built for deception. On 6 May 2010, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by about 1,000 points in minutes. Shares of household-name companies traded at bizarre prices. Liquidity vanished, then reappeared. By the end of the afternoon, much of the damage had reversed, but the event left regulators, exchanges, banks, and traders staring at the same question: how could a mod

At 9:30 am on 1 August 2012, Knight Capital Group was one of the most important trading firms on Wall Street. Less than an hour later, it was fighting for its life. In just 45 minutes, a software fault sent a storm of mistaken orders into the US stock market. Knight lost around $440 million, more than it had made in profit over the previous year. The firm did not suffer a bad bet in the usual sense. It did not misread the economy, back the wrong company, or get caught by a su