I'm sure you have heard this expression before. Sure you might think it comes from the fact that bubbles are fragile and they can pop at any second. But there is actually a history behind the word that very few people know. One that cost several companies billions of dollars in a single day. It was a dark 24 hours and it was all caused by a toy.
It was take your child to work day in the 90s. Andrew Hansfield took his daughter to his office. He tried to get her mother to take her but she was a doctor and could not have a child running around the hospital. So Andrew took his child to his work space which had several computers set up to trade stocks. Their firm handled a lot of companies in the tech sector and they were responsible for the wealth of, what used to be, some of the biggest tech brand names in the world. I will not call out any names so not to embarrass them, but if there was a large tech company that you haven't heard from in years this is the reason why.
Andrew had to make a trade so he asked his daughter to go play. She, of course, was bored. Knowing this would happen, Andrew brought a toy with him that she could use. It was one of those bubble wands. He figured it was bubbles, how much trouble could they cause. So she went off and ran between the desks. Andrew went to his computers to make trades. Everything seemed normal at first, but then the market started to take a turn. Everything was tanking. It was red across the board. Not knowing what to do, Andrew and all the other traders started to sell. The price got worse. Not wanting to lose all the money they were responsible for they continued to get out.
What they didn't know was it was a glitch in the system. One of the bubbles floated to the servers above them and popped, causing it to go haywire. This resulted in showing that the stocks were down when they really weren't. And as you may know, when panic sets in, the rest is a downward spiral. But there was one man who saw it, the Janitor. He didn't like the company he worked for so he said nothing. But he did spread the rumour of what a bubble can do to the market.
And yes this is not a true story.
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