US tech stock prices go haywire thanks to test data glitch

NASDAQ feed populated with test data

Nasdaq has blamed the distribution of test data for a glitch that saw the share prices of US tech heavyweights listed on its exchange apparently set to $123.456 (on some sites the price appears rounded up to $123.47).

The problem saw a number of companies listed on the Nasdaq, including Amazon and Apple, have their share prices slashed (although as commentators on Twitter noted, the impact on some stocks was rather more flattering).

The problem appears to effect sites that rely on a data feed from NASDAQ but does not appear to have affected the exchange’s site.

“As part of its normal process, the UTP distributed test data and certain third parties improperly propagated the data,” Nasdaq said in a statement.

“Nasdaq is working with these third party vendors to resolve the matter as quickly as possible.”

Google Finance and Yahoo Finance both appear affected by the problem, although some NASDAQ stocks appear to be reported accurately.

The problem appears to be less serious than the last high-profile glitch on an Australian exchange, which saw a dramatic outage at the ASX after a hardware failure in September last year.

Prior to the problems at the ASX, the market had only been forced to close on three previous occasions over the last decade.



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