Friday, March 23, 2012

Apple Shares Go Batty, But Stock Trading Back to Normal

Apple Shares Go Batty, But Stock Trading Back to Normal.

"UPDATE: Apple shares just resumed trading and are currently down 0.3% at $597.58. The stock was halted for five minutes from 10:57 a.m. Eastern Time to 11:02.

2nd UPDATE: It appears a bad trade triggered the halt. Stocks are halted if they swing more than 10% in a span of five minutes. This allows market participants time to regroup and to prevent further erroneous trades from undermining the market.

3rd UPDATE: According to FactSet, at 10:57:28, orders placed through the BATS Global Markets came in well below where Apple had previously been trading. Orders first came in at $551.66 and microseconds later went as low as $542.80 before the stock was halted.

4th UPDATE: CNBC is now reporting that Nasdaq is canceling the erroneous Apple trades made on the BATS exchange."

I've never heard of BATS, it's a new trading system based in Kansas City. Still I really have reservations about automated trading (I assume that's what this is).


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