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Triggering mini-crashes could help stock markets ride out tough times

By Kate Ravilious

10 August 2002

WALL STREET’S sneezing fit continues, and the rest of the world can’t shake off its cold. Could the answer be to “immunise” the stock market by injecting it with a dose of minor downturns? If it works, a few jabs at the right time and place could make devastating crashes a thing of the past.

Michael Hart and his colleagues at Oxford University have made a computer simulation of the stock market, mimicking a group of traders who try to profit by buying when the majority wants to sell and selling when the majority wants to buy. Each time the…

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