(Bloomberg) —NYSEEuronext experienced two technical malfunctions during the first 40 minutes of trading, three days before it handles Twitter Inc.s initial public offering.
All trades processed by the New York Stock Exchange andNYSEMKT were mislabeled on the industrys main data feed as sold during the error, which was resolved at about 10:09 a.m. New York time today.NYSEEuronext also had trouble quoting shares, according to a statement. Bats Global Markets Inc., one of the four major U.S. stock market owners, briefly stopped sending buy and sell orders toNYSEduring the error.
[See Traders Magazine Twitter Coverage]
While neither malfunction stopped trading, the fault came three days beforeNYSEEuronext handles Twitters first day as a public company in the most-watched debut since Nasdaq mishandled Facebooks initial public offering in May 2012. TheNYSEerror also followed mishaps last week at Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. and Deutsche Boerse AGs International Securities Exchange.
Nobody likes to have these issues, and Im sure the exchanges are working as hard as they can to avoid them, Ben Schwartz, the Chicago-based chief market strategist at broker Lightspeed Financial Inc., said in a phone interview. For Twitters first day of trading, I would expectNYSEto be well prepared, especially after the previous mishaps.
Winning Twitter
NYSEEuronext won Twitters IPO in October, beating Nasdaq for whats set to be the largest U.S. technology debut since Facebook. A software error at Nasdaq delayed Facebook trading on May 18, 2012, leading to a $10 million Securities and Exchange Commission fine for the exchange and $41.6 million in claims from firms with losses.
Seeking to avoid similar trouble,NYSEEuronext has let brokers test its systems leading up to Twitters first day of trading.NYSEEuronext is poised to be acquired by IntercontinentalExchange Group Inc.
Rich Adamonis,NYSEspokesman, declined to comment today.
Winning Twitter was the latest evidence thatNYSEs ability to score listings from Internet companies has improved. Twitter follows Pandora Media Inc., LinkedIn Corp. and Yelp Inc. in pickingNYSEinstead of Nasdaq.
Recent Errors
Twitter today increased the price of shares in its IPO by as much as 25 percent, putting it on track to raise $1.75 billion. The microblogging site is offering 70 million shares for $23 to $25 each, according to a regulatory filing today, indicating a market value of as much as $13.6 billion. Twitter had earlier proposed selling shares for $17 to $20 apiece.
NYSEs error today was the latest in a series of computer malfunctions at the largest U.S. equity and options markets. Since Aug. 1, Nasdaq, Bats, CBOE Holdings Inc. and ISE have all experienced system issues that affected trading.
A Nasdaq error halted trading for thousands of U.S. stocks it lists on Aug. 22, while anNYSEsubsidiary suffered an interruption that briefly stopped the entire U.S. options market on Sept. 16.
The frequency and severity of recent outages prompted SEC Chairman Mary Jo White to call the heads of the exchanges to a meeting in Washington on Sept. 12, where she ordered them to collaborate on improving the reliability of systems and developing better backups.NYSEEuronext Chief Executive Officer Duncan Niederauer said at the time that they had 60 days to report back to regulators.
The industry has made progress in meeting Whites demands, CBOE President and Chief Operating Officer Edward Provost told Bloomberg News on Oct. 4.
