, Columnist
Nasdaq Warned Us About Its Leaky Plumbing
Nasdaq gave everyone lots of warning about the unreliability of its computer systems before today's trading halt.
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At Nasdaq OMX Group Inc., which operates the Nasdaq Stock Market, there are these things the company calls "systems issues" that crop up from time to time. The rest of the world calls them disasters. And today was a heck of an example, with the Nasdaq halting trading in stocks and options for much of the afternoon.
It's enough to make an investor want to short Nasdaq -- except that wasn't possible during the trading halt, because Nasdaq's stock trades on the Nasdaq. Another computer malfunction, we're told. Or maybe a squirrel chewed through the wrong wire somewhere. Nobody knows what happened yet, and the fat-finger excuse doesn't work anymore.