NYSE says bizarre glitch that showed Berkshire Hathaway down 99.97% has been resolved
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The New York Stock Exchange said Monday's technical issue is related to a mechanism designed to prevent stock prices from swinging wildly. |
New York CNN —
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) announced Monday that it has resolved a technical issue that had temporarily halted trading for several major stocks and caused Berkshire Hathaway's shares to plummet by 99.97%.
In an update, NYSE confirmed that the affected stocks have resumed trading and that "all systems are currently operational."
According to a senior executive at a major bank in contact with Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of NYSE, there is no evidence suggesting that the glitch was the result of a cyberattack. Instead, NYSE attributed the problem to a “technical issue” with industry-wide price bands, which triggered halts in numerous stocks listed on the exchange.
These price bands are published by the Consolidated Tape Association’s (CTA) Security Information Processor (SIP), an industry group responsible for disseminating real-time trade and quote data.
Earlier in the day, dozens of stocks were paused, indicating they had traded outside the so-called limit up-limit down bands, as noted on NYSE’s website. Among these stocks were Chipotle and Berkshire Hathaway, the holding company led by renowned investor Warren Buffett.
For nearly two hours, Berkshire Hathaway’s Class A shares were erroneously listed at $185.10 — a 99.97% drop from its closing price of $627,400 on Friday.
“This is not a Nasdaq issue,” Nasdaq spokesperson Emily Pan told CNN.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) did not respond to requests for comment.
Joe Saluzzi, co-founder of Themis Trading, expressed skepticism about NYSE’s explanation. “I’m not buying that explanation. That doesn’t make any sense to me,” said Saluzzi, a market structure expert and author of “Broken Markets.”
Trading data from Refinitiv shows that Berkshire Hathaway was trading at $620,700 as of 9:44:32 AM on Monday, before suddenly dropping to $185.10 without the usual intermediate trades. “It makes no sense,” said Saluzzi, who expects these erroneous trades to be canceled by NYSE shortly.
The technical issues did not appear to affect the broader stock market significantly. Besides Berkshire, most halted stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) saw only slight fluctuations in their trading prices.
However, Barrick Gold (GOLD), a Canadian gold and copper producer, was briefly displayed as trading at just 25 cents — a 98.5% decline. By midday, it was back to $17.28, up 1.1% for the day.
Similarly, NuScale Power (SMR), a modular nuclear reactor technology company, was listed at 13 cents, down 98.5%. After resuming trading, NuScale was at $8.29, down just 5%.
This story has been updated with additional developments and context.
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