Information Cascades and the financial market
The article linked talks about how the European countries are trying to prevent an information cascade about bad debt in Southern European countries. They fear that if people begin to short the Italian debt that prices of Italian bonds will plummet as more and more people will follow their lead in shorting the bonds.
This is not unlike most stocks, as mentioned in the article. Most financial market movement is due to information cascades, whether it comes from reliable sources such as quarterly earnings reports or a janky news website. The stock prices fluctuate based on people buying or selling and when we see large jumps this is due to a large number of people following a similar action. And as more people see the price fall or rise, they will join in to either save themselves from losing money, or get in on a fast rising stock. The lack of equilibrium in these stock prices due to the cascades is what makes it such a lucrative market.
https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2011/10/26/information-cascades#ampf=undefined