NYSE Tech Glitch

A tech glitch halted trading at the New York Stock Exchange from more than 3 hours. A configuration problem in the system made it impossible for investors to get reliable data and once the problem was noted trading had to be suspended.

There was some speculation that there had been a cyber breach but after 3 and half hours the problem had been solved and trading was back to normal.

 

It is natural to think large outages, especially when more than one occur at the same time, may be hacking or denial of service. However it is also true that quite small errors, outages, or incompatibilities can cause large failures.

I think the NYSE and United outages are probably exactly what those involved say they are: specific connection and software glitches that caused an outage of a set of large and interconnected systems that are centralized but in an ad hoc way. Some of the hardware and software they use is old, vulnerable and being used in a manner and on a scale that was never imagined when they were first designed.

 

There is always doubt, which is why the markets took a hit yesterday. If there is any hint that it was terrorism or some other way that affects stability moving forward, people are going to put their money in cash.

 

Any traders wanting to execute orders yesterday could do so by routing same through other electronic and dark pool exchanges. The MSM gets excited because the NYSE and NASDAQ are in the public eye. Brian Kelly and Steve Grasso on CNBC Fast Money discussed the mess last night. Other NYSE floor people in the know suggest the NYSE is most important at the open when accumulated overnight orders are matched off, and again at the close as traders clear the daily decks.

As an aside @DPRK_News tweeted messages that NK hackers were responsible for the United Airlines and, later in the day, the NYSE outages. The now apparently defunct kcna.co.jp web site listed in the Twitter profile was the official KCNA press agency outlet before the wires were connected in Pyongyang. The current web site is http://www.kcna.kp/ but it is bit slow due to the relatively poor infrastructure. The USA MSM didn't mention the Twitter postings, probably the right thing to do, but I am probably giving the MSM too much credit.

 

It must have sucked to be in the stock market business yesterday haha. No but seriously, that really must have been a scary situation to have to deal with.

 

I definitely concur with this statement. I feel like a lot of people are going to put their money cash, anyways.

 

It's kind of strange that his happened just as other exchanges also halted trading but for geopolitical reasons...