Site icon MacDailyNews

Apple and the risks of trading 29,000 times per second

“By now anybody who reads the business pages knows that BATS Global Markets screwed up its initial public offering big time Friday by mangling trades in a bunch of stock symbols at the top of the alphabet, including Apple (AAPL) and BATS, its own stock,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune.

“Apple’s shares briefly fell by more than $55 per share,” P.E.D. reports. “BATS, which had been trading for more than $15, fell to less than 4 cents. NASDAQ quickly erased all those trades and BATS was allowed to cancel its IPO.”

P.E.D. reports, “The official explanation for what happened — or at least the one BATS and the Security Exchange Commission worked out Friday — is that software in a server covering stock symbols from A to BFZZZ went a little haywire, spitting out what are known on the Street as ‘false prints.'”

Read more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “David G.” for the heads up.]

Exit mobile version