[bandrami]

> A firm might go bankrupt and have to lay off real people if caught on the wrong side of such an event.

Why?

If you mean the fund holding the securities, yes, they might go bankrupt. Risk of having that kind of "job".

If you mean the company whose shares are falling, I don't see how that affects them unless they just happened to be issuing their own stock that day (I don't think any of the companies in question were).