oh dear. down 3%

I certainly didn't think the market would tank quite so badly today. Much more than the tanking of the market though, the really troubling thing was the early close. Today was the first time in the history of the TSE that the market closed early.
The market driving computers were evidentally overwhelmed by the number of orders. That the were tons of orders being pushed through is, I think, a good thing. The market had already lifted a little off of its daily lows, so the volume of orders was likely caused in part by people snapping up perceived bargains.
But shutting the market down is a terrible thing. The TSE had another outrage regarding the market-infrastructure in december when a single order was beefed up. The number of shares and price of shares got switched, and the order was carried out. This further trouble with the infrastructure will not be welcomed by the international investment community. (which incidentally makes up over 70% of the market cap of the TSE).

Even worse though is the fallout from the underinformed individual investor. These two days of crash belong almost entirely to the individual japanese investors being spooked. Now, the market choking on volume of orders will sound royally shitty to the gut-reacting housewife daytraders. I can't imagine tomorrow will be a good day.

However, it is a matter of live/die by the sword/irrational indivual investor. I wonder how long they're gonna stay spooked.