New York Stock Exchange Sudden Glitch: Mere Coincidence?

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has experienced severe technical issues on Monday, which halted trading for some of the major stocks.

The glitch – which took place during a software update – led the NYSE to stop all trading for about 40 stocks and display odd trades showing a 99% drop in companies including Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

In a highly awaited statement, NYSE stated that impacted stocks have now reopened and “all systems are currently operational.”

• This sudden disruption marks the third incident to hit the U.S. markets in the past week.
• It got resolved roughly 45 minutes later.

NYSE stated that it will cancel the bad trades in Berkshire Hathaway and is currently reviewing other halts to determine whether to cancel any of those as well.

Not only this, but it has been confirmed that erroneous trades in NuScale Power (SMR), Barrick Gold (GOLD), and Chipotle Mexican Grill will also be subject to cancelation. 

 

1. Berkshire Hathaway was down 99.97%
2. Barrick Gold was down 98.54%

However, after trading had resumed, Berkshire Hathaway closed 0.6% higher at $631,110.10. As for Barrick Gold, it climbed nearly 2% to $17.42.

The sudden disruption did not affect Nasdaq-listed shares and did not have a major impact on the broader market whatsoever.

It is to note that it is not the first stock market hiccup to occur. As a matter of fact, a previous glitch occurred last Thursday, which heavily affected the dissemination of real-time data for both S&P 500 and Dow Jones indexes for over an hour.

Additionally, two days earlier, an exchange had problems interfacing with the data dissemination feed.

“A little weird, but almost undoubtedly coincidental,” said Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Broker LLC.

Sosnick added: 

“We’ve gotten used to huge amounts of uptimes without exchange incidents, so when a couple of glitches in a row occur it is notable.”

This incident revives memories of a confusing January 2023 episode, when a staffer at the NYSE’s backup data centre in Chicago had left a backup system running in an error that led to wild price swings for a good chunk of stocks when the market opened.

Did you know? NYSE is owned and operated by Intercontinental Exchange Inc. and operates multiple exchanges including both NYSE Arca and NYSE American.

“Whether a coincidence or not, it is certainly causing a pile of confusion on the street for the second session out of the last three,” Dave Lutz, Head of ETFs at JonesTrading, said in a message.