After nearly five months, federal regulators have been able to dissect the events of May 6, the day when the Dow plunged almost 1,000 points.

A joint report issued by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) pieced together that day's events and came up with this finding, as reported in the Wall Street Journal. A computerized trading program run by a Waddell & Reed trader automatically sold 35,000 e-mini S&P contracts. These contracts mirror the larger S&P contracts. The trader's program was triggered at 9% of the trade volume.

On May 6, we saw the Dow plunge almost 1,000 points in a matter of minutes. To date, no one has pinpointed the cause of the crash.

Meanwhile the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been scrambling to plug the leak in the dike. An article in USA Today outlines the expanded SEC rules.

In response to the market's flash crash of May 6, the Securities and Exchange Commission put in place circuit breakers that are designed to halt trading if the price of a stock rises or falls 10% within a five-minute period.

On Wednesday, the circuit breakers were triggered when shares of Washington Post (WPO) doubled in one second. Prices were all over the lot. At 3:07 p.m. (EST) Washington Post was trading at $460. Suddenly, an order for 400 shares and another for 200 were executed at $919.18, followed by 166 shares at $929.18.

New circuit breakers will take effect next week on the NYSE aimed at preventing another "flash crash." Under this new system, halts are triggered based on where the price of the stock was trading during the previous five minute period. They will be in effect from 9:45 a.m. to 3:35 p.m.

During the crash of May 6, some stocks crashed to near zero. For example, Accenture (ACN) plunged from $40 to an incredible penny per share.

How do they do it? How is the price of oil manipulated?

The New York Times offers a look inside a company that allegedly manipulated oil prices and the methods they used to do it. The company is based in Amsterdam. It is little known and maintains a low profile, yet has become a force to reckoned with in the oil markets. What is the name of this company? It's called Optiver, and it employs about 600 people.

The SEC plans to ban "flash trades." What are flash trades? Flash trades give some brokerages an advance look at orders. Most major exchanges, except the NYSE Euronet, use the flash trade system. It gives clients a look at orders a fraction of a second before the trades are routed to rival platforms. The practice is deemed unfair and is the reason for the ban.

A ban would reverse a 2004 SEC ruling permitting flash trades. Flash trades account for only 2.4% of shares traded in the US. The proposal to ban the activity by the SEC is subject first to a vote by SEC commissioners, then feedback is requested for a period of between 30 and 90 days. Then, commissioners come back and vote on whether or not to enact the ban.

Shares of the NYSE Group (NYSE:NYX) have soared close to 15% since they hit a short-term low on March 16th. There are several catalysts behind this move:

First, exchange shares were hit harder than most during the broader market decline in late February. Fundamentally, however, the short-term market dip is unlikely to have a major impact on revenues at NYSE. In fact, trading volume on the exchange actually surged to near-record levels during that decline -- and higher volumes spell more fees for NYX.

It also helps that the company is now completing its planned takeover of Europe's Euronext. The tender offer for Euronext ended in late March, and NYX announced it currently controls more than 92% of Euronext shares. Over the next three years, NYX believes it can extract some 293 million euros ($385 million) from the deal in the form of cost savings and other synergies. In addition, the deal will also facilitate trans-Atlantic trading in stocks and options. Many see the deal as a major positive, and a potential growth avenue for NYX.