The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the enforcement arm of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), responded by requiring a pause in the trading of individual stocks when the price moves 10% or more either way in a five-minute period.

Congress has not investigated automated trading systems, according to O'Dowd and Furlonger.

Lucas Mearian covers storage, disaster recovery and business continuity, financial services infrastructure and health care IT for Computerworld. Follow Lucas on Twitter at , or subscribe to . His e-mail address is .

in Computerworld's Financial Services Topic Center.