Rather than coding and punching all prices twice and then resolving discrepancies manually, we found a better procedure. We know that the change in the price of a stock during one month is very nearly independent of its change during the next month. Therefore, if a price changes a large amount from one date to a second date, and by a similar amount in the opposite direction from the second date to a third, there is a reason to believe that at the second date the price was misrecorded. A "large change" was rather arbitrarily taken to mean a change in magnitude of more than 10 per cent of the previous price plus a dollar.

Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, loc. 113