On May 6, the market experienced something it really never has seen before. The huge “flash crash” that caused the Dow to swing more than 1,000 points in a little more than an hour represented the second-largest, one-day point decline (998.5 points) on an intraday basis in Dow Jones Industrial Average history.

There’s been a lot of speculation about what actually caused the flash crash and, to this day, nobody really knows for sure. I’ve heard all kinds of potential explanations, some more plausible than others. There was the so-called “fat finger” scenario, where it is said that traders in Procter & Gamble inadvertently placed a big sell order that caused the program trades to be triggered. This notion was later proven to be false.

Then we saw a report by the Securities and Exchange Commission that said the flash crash was caused by a confluence of economic events, market forces and trading-system functionality that led to a significant dislocation of liquidity. I think that conclusion is pretty obvious and less than insightful, to say the least. Other reports blame so-called high-frequency trading programs for the huge imbalance in trades. In my opinion, this is the most plausible culprit.

Unfortunately, a lot of people are blaming ETFs for the problems of the flash crash, and this is akin to blaming the victim for a criminal’s actions. Yes, it is true that many ETFs suffered from trading glitches and broken trades, but these were essentially the same problems that rocked individual stocks.

According to a report by Morningstar, about 20% of all ETFs were at least temporarily snarled in the trading glitches that took place that day. At some point on May 6, approximately 210 of the 980 funds in the ETF universe changed hands at prices more than 50% below their ultimate closing price, Morningstar reported. And while this indeed is a big problem, it is more of a market problem than an ETF-specific issue.

I think that the flash crash should be looked upon as a systemic problem with program and high-frequency trading, and not a problem with the trading vehicles at hand. You could say that the market suffered a mild heart attack on May 6 and, rather than trying to get at the root cause of the problem, some pundits would rather blame the victims, which in this case are ETFs and individual stocks.

I say it’s time to look at the high-frequency trading programs and perhaps other computerized trading programs -- not the financial instruments being traded -- for the real cause of the flash crash.