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World Business Report: First broadcast 2016/10/07 22:32 GMT: Flash Crash Automated Trading Hits British Pound.

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Pound flash crash traders cropped.jpg

First broadcast 2016/10/07 22:32 GMT

First broadcast 2016/10/07 22:32 GMT: Flash Crash Automated Trading Hits British Pound.

Flash Crash Automated Trading Hits British Pound.

BBC World Service - World Business Report, Flash Crash Automated Trading Hits British Pound.

The Bank of England is investigating if trading by computers caused the pound to drop 6%.

The value of the British Pound dived 6% in just two minutes in Asia on Friday, in a fall that has been blamed on automated trading by computers, a so called flash crash.

The British pound started a bad week under pressure, after the UK prime minister revealed the country will trigger the process of leaving the European Union by March and sterling has finished the week with a two minute dive of 6% in Asia. The pound recovered some lost ground but an investigation is underway into the role played by computers conducting automated trading, creating a flash crash in the currency markets. Katie Martin from the FT tells us more about computer algorithms causing extreme market movements.

With just about a month to go until Americans vote for their next president, financial data is being carefully scrutinised to see if either of the main candidates can gain advantage with their economic policies. The latest data shows employment growth has slowed and the jobless rate has risen, but not by much. The US economy is still expanding, but not a lot. Irwin Stelzer, an economist at the Hudson Institute in Washington, reads between the lines of the figures. 

People in Morocco have been voting on Friday in a general election which has seen much debate about the high level of unemployment in the country. The economy is struggling with high levels of foreign debt and the North African nation is also facing a threat to its security from the self styled Islamic State group. The BBC's Nora Fakim gives us a picture of developments in Morocco, from Rabat, five years on from the Arab Spring uprisings that reshaped the region.

It has been another busy week for the BBC's Business News Team reporting events like the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington, where fears about opposition to globalisation have been aired. We also focused on the UK debating a cut in immigration and forcing companies to reveal how many foreign staff they employ. This week Google has been telling investors how it wants to be more plugged in to the internet of things. We reflect on these developments with Peter Coy, Economics Editor at Bloomberg Business Week in New York and Rebecca Byrne, City Reporter with the Wall Street Journal in London. 

(Picture: Currency traders in Tokyo. Copyright: Getty Images.)

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