The NASDAQ Stock Market has experienced something weird this week. Reports said that the American stock market has been hit by a system glitch after the closing bell on Monday. The glitch has caused lots of attention and confusion in the stock market, but it didn't last long.
According to the UK-based publication The Independent, The prices of several Nasdaq-listed stocks appeared to have lost more than half of their value, while other like that of #Apple appeared to spike, reaching a sky-high market valuation.
Alphabet, the parent company of the search giant Google, and e-commerce giant eBay were among others companies that were hit by this system glitch.
These companies were reportedly priced at $123.47 on some online financial publications last Monday evening.
A closer at NASDAQ
Founded in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an American stock exchange, and its currently the second largest stock exchange in the world, just behind the largest NYSE. In addition to being the second largest stock market in the financial industry, NASDAQ also owns the NASDAQ Nordic, NASDAQ Baltic stock market network and several others US stock exchanges.
NASDAQ, which stands for National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations, was the world’s first electronic stock market when it started trading on 1971. At that time, the stock trading platform was merely a quotation system and did not provide any means of electronic trading.
When first introduced in the market, NASDAQ has managed to help lower the difference between the asking price and bid price of the certain stock. However, this tool has been unpopular to some stock brokerages, which said to make most of their earning on the spread, the financial term used for defining the difference between the asking price and bid price of the stock.
The glitch on NASDAQ
The recent glitch in the stock market has caused some disruptions in the stock trading. Big-name companies like the Seattle-based Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, and even eBay were hit by the said glitch, causing some drastic changes to the companies’ stock prices. Apple’s stock price was reportedly quadrupled, thus valuing the Cupertino-based company at a whopping $3.37 trillion.
Other like Amazon and Microsoft plummeted, causing to lost more than half of their market value.
The investigation
As mentioned earlier by The Independent, NASDAQ officials have already released a statement that it was investigating the improper use of the test data that has been distributed by the third parties. NASDAQ and other stock exchanges have regularly tested their software and trading systems to help prevent electronic glitches. These tests often using test symbols and tests data distributed by the third parties.
Fortunately, the recent system glitch has not able to make any damage to the financial market, meaning everything is in good condition. Additionally, NASDAQ officials have also confirmed that the actual prices of the stock were not affected.
And more importantly, there was no stock trading made and completed at that price.
Finally, NASDAQ and other U.S. stock exchanges closed early on Monday ahead of the U.S. Independence Day holiday, which is July 4, 2017.
