"Money and Speed" - an interactive iPad documentary

The documentary "Money and Speed - inside the black box" is a reconstruction of the fastest and deepest plunge of the U.S. stock market ever.

On Thursday May 6, 2010, U.S. financial markets plunged for no apparent reason and with unprecedented speed. Huge multinationals were being traded at just $0.01 a share. Then, after 20 minutes, everything returned to previous levels. This high frequency trading documentary tries to explain why this happened.

Trading at the speed of light (Don't stop me now)

Marije Meerman's documentary explores a global financial system that has become a network of black boxes. An opaque network where computer programs make hundreds or thousands of transactions each second, or as it is known in the industry: High frequency trading.

The average citizen has no idea what is happening inside these black boxes, but that is also true for higher management and financial regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Who are really in charge of the stock markets? Humans or computer programs?

One way to try and grasp what really happened is to visualize the thousands of transactions at the time the market plunged. The interactive documentary lets you explore graphs showing the share prices of Accenture, Apple and P&G and the Dow Jones index.

Other interactive elements include:

• Extra material: in-depth interviews
• Interactive map showing critical factors for planning a data center close to the exchange
• Live updates from stock exchanges around the world
• Social sharing (Facebook, Twitter)

Money and Speed - inside the black box

Download the interactive documentary iPad app

• Director: Marije Meerman
• Research: Gerko Wessel
• Production: Maria Schneider
• Editors: Henneke Hagen / Jos de Putter

Bonus Clip: Quants of Wall Street

Avoiding a mathematician-led meltdown