Computers as culprits: They did help induce panic

It is not fair, however, to say that computers were in all ways a positive influence on the exchange that day. James French of Wellington Management Company, a veteran of Black Monday, writes "in evaluating [the various systems'] usefulness and efectiveness under stress ... I would have to say that modern technology did not serve us all that well in the trading process and that in some areas it either hindered or hurt us." (citation) In particular, the failure of the exchange's DOT (Designated Order Turnaround) system designed to execute trades automatically, and the national ITS (Intermarket Trading System), designed to make price and volume information public, contributed to panic conditions. When DOT became unreliable, traders went back to the tried and true floor auction techniques relying only on pencil and paper that had been the market's mainstay for more than a century and a half. The real problem was the breakdown of ITS.