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The New York Stock Exchange said Monday the technical problem was related to a mechanism designed to prevent stock prices from swinging wildly.
New York
CNN
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The New York Stock Exchange said on Monday that trading in some key stocks had been halted and a technical problem had been resolved that caused Berkshire Hathaway to plunge 99.97%.
In an update, the NYSE said the affected stocks had reopened and that “all systems are currently operational.”
The Intercontinental Exchange, the NYSE’s parent company, has not detected any signs of disruption caused by the cyber attack, a senior executive at a major bank in contact with ICE told CNN.
Instead, a NYSE spokesman said there was a “technical issue” with industry-wide price groups that “triggered” trading in up to 40 symbols listed on NYSE group exchanges.
The NYSE noted that those price bands are published through the Securities Information Processor (SIP) of the Consolidated Tape Association (CTA). The CTA, an industry body, is responsible for publishing real-time trading and quote data.
CTA said experienced a problem “Maybe related to new software release.” The industry group said it relied on a secondary data center running an older version of the software to fix the problem.
Dozens of stocks were suspended earlier in the day, a sign that they traded outside so-called limit-up-limit-down bands. NYSE’s website. That list includes Chipotle and Berkshire Hathaway, the holding company run by legendary investor Warren Buffett.
For nearly two hours, Berkshire Hathaway’s Class A shares were listed as trading at just $185.10 — representing a 99.97% loss. Berkshire closed Friday at $627,400.
The NYSE announced that it had decided to “suspend” or cancel all “erroneous” trades of Berkshire between 9:50 a.m. ET and 9:51 a.m. ET at or below $603,718.30. The exchange said the ruling was not subject to appeal and could void other trades.
“We are monitoring the issue and engaging with market participants,” a Securities and Exchange Commission spokeswoman told CNN.
Joe Saluzzi, co-founder of Themis Trading, told CNN that the NYSE’s interpretation is difficult to equate with the strange trades that hit the tape.
“I don’t buy that explanation. It doesn’t make sense to me,” said Saluzzi, a market structure expert and author of “Broken Markets.”
Trading data provided by Refinitiv shows that Berkshire Hathaway traded up $620,700 as of 9:44:32 a.m. on Monday. Then, without explanation, the stock fell to $185.10.
“Suddenly, $185 was printed. But, as you would expect to see, there’s nothing to stabilize it,” Saluzzi said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
The technical problems did not affect the broader stock market Economic growth is often less of a concern.
Except for Berkshire, most discontinued stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) traded only slightly higher or lower.
However, bary gold (Gold), a Canadian gold and copper producer, was shown trading at just 25 cents — down 98.5% on the day, according to Refinitiv. By midday, Baric had returned to normal, trading at $17.28 – up 1.1% on the day.
NuScale Power (SMR), which developed modular nuclear reactor technology and went public, listed at just 13 cents, down 98.5% on the day. After NuScale reopened, it was down just 5% to trade at $8.29.
This story has been updated with additional developments and context.
