Citi claims trader flop caused Europe’s ‘flash crash’

On Monday, a so-called flash collapse in European markets caused multiple indices to plummet abruptly, alarming investors on a day when trade was light due to worldwide public holidays.

After certain European equities quickly turned lower, trading in many markets was momentarily halted just before 8 a.m. London time on Monday.

Nordic stocks took the brunt of the losses, with Sweden’s Stockholm OMX 30 share index plunging as much as 8% at one stage before recovering most of its losses to conclude the session down 1.9 percent.

For a brief while, other European markets also fell. Citigroup, the largest bank in the United States, admitted responsibility for the flash crash on Monday.

“On Monday, one of our traders made an error when inputting a transaction. Within minutes, we identified the error and corrected it,” a spokesperson for Citi told CNBC.