By Chris Dieterich
NEW YORK--Rival exchanges briefly stopped sending orders to the
New York Stock Exchange as the Big Board experienced trading
problems with more than two dozen stocks Monday. The glitch, which
was quickly resolved, came in the last hour of trading in a year
that has been marked by technological glitches large and small.
NYSE said in an alert to traders at 3:19 p.m. EST that its
equity market was experiencing an issue with one of its engines
that matches "buy" and "sell" orders and that 26 issues were
affected, including BBX Capital Corp. (BBX), Verso Paper Corp.
(VRS) and TransAlta Corp. (TAC).
A subsequent alert sent at 3:23 p.m. EST said the issue was
resolved. A spokesman for the NYSE, part of NYSE Euronext (NYX),
couldn't immediately provide details of the trading problem.
BATS Global Markets and Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. (NDAQ) each
declared "self-help" against the NYSE. Exchanges can declare
self-help when another market appears slow to respond to incoming
orders or if the flow of information to and from the exchange is
disrupted. Both exchanges began routing orders back to NYSE within
15 minutes.
The problem arose with less than an hour's worth of trading left
in 2012, a year that has seen other notable technological
problems.
Facebook Inc. (FB)'s troubled initial public offering in May
left many investors initially wondering whether they owned stock.
Bad software at Knight Capital Group Inc. (KCG) in August triggered
errant stock orders that amounted to hundreds of millions of
dollars in losses for the firm.
Write to Chris Dieterich at
christopher.dieterich@dowjones.com
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