The New York Stock Exchange faced a technical issue on Monday that caused trading to halt for some major stocks, including Berkshire Hathaway, which saw its stock price plummet by 99.97%. The issue was related to a mechanism designed to prevent stock prices from swinging wildly, according to NYSE.
After nearly two hours of trading disruptions, NYSE announced that the technical issue had been resolved, and all impacted stocks had reopened for trading. The parent company of NYSE, Intercontinental Exchange, confirmed that the glitch was not caused by a cyberattack.
The Consolidated Tape Association’s Security Information Processor (SIP) was responsible for publishing the price bands that triggered the trading halts. CTA reported that the issue may have been related to a new software release, prompting them to rely on a secondary data center operating on an older version of the software to fix the problem.
NYSE decided to cancel all “erroneous” trades for Berkshire Hathaway that occurred during the technical issue, ensuring that trades below a certain price point would be nullified. Market participants and experts expressed skepticism about the explanation provided by NYSE, with some finding it hard to believe that the bizarre trades were solely caused by a technical glitch.
Despite the trading disruptions, the broader stock market was not significantly impacted, with most halted stocks and ETFs only experiencing slight fluctuations. Barrick Gold and NuScale Power were among the other stocks affected by the technical issue, with their prices temporarily crashing before returning to normal trading levels.
