The development of new technologies has created new ways of trading on capital markets. Computing power has permitted High Frequency Trading to become the most active actor on markets and has given competitive advantages associated with the speed of algorithms.
This thesis witnesses the increasing power of High Frequency Trading by focusing on the example of Flash Crashes events. It gives information on the causes and on estimation on the full power of algorithmic traders.
The analysis of different failures because of the new financial uses helps to understand the causes and the scale at which HFT can impact the financial system. As a link to further possible researches, the analyse of the actions taken to counter the risks of algorithmic trading leads to potential improvement in order to solve the unfairness issues of current market places.