NYSE says bizarre glitch that showed Berkshire Hathaway down 99.97% has been resolved

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CNN
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The New York Stock Exchange announced Monday that a technical glitch that halted trading in some major stocks and caused a 99.97% drop in Berkshire Hathaway had been resolved.

In an update, the NYSE said affected stocks have reopened and “all systems are currently operational.”

Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the NYSE, found no indication that the problem was caused by a cyberattack, a senior executive at a major bank in contact with ICE told CNN.

Instead, an NYSE spokesperson said there was a “technical issue” with industry-wide price bands that “triggered” a trading halt on up to 40 listed symbols on the NYSE group exchanges.

The NYSE noted that these price ranges are published by the Consolidated Tape Association’s (CTA) Security Information Processor (SIP). CTA, an industry group, is responsible for publishing real-time trading and quote data.

CTA said it encountered an issue that “may be related to a new software version.” To resolve the problem, the industry group said it relied on a secondary data center running the old version of the software.

Dozens of stocks were suspended earlier in the day, an indication that they were trading outside of these so-called ascending and descending limit bands, according to the NYSE website. That list includes Chipotle and Berkshire Hathaway, the holding company run by legendary investor Warren Buffett.

For nearly two hours, Berkshire Hathaway Class A shares were trading at just $185.10, a price that would represent a 99.97% loss. Berkshire closed at $627,400 on Friday.

The NYSE announced that it had decided to “delete” or cancel all “erroneous” trades in Berkshire between 9:50 a.m. ET and 9:51 a.m. ET at a price at or below $603,718.30. The exchange said the decision was not subject to appeal and indicated it could reverse further transactions.

“We are monitoring the matter and engaging with market participants,” a Securities and Exchange Commission spokesperson told CNN.

Joe Saluzzi, co-founder of Themis Trading, told CNN that the NYSE’s explanation is difficult to reconcile with the bizarre trades that have been broadcast.

“I don’t buy that explanation. That doesn’t make any sense to me,” said Saluzzi, an expert on market structure and author of “Broken Markets.”

Trading data provided by Refinitiv shows Berkshire Hathaway changed hands at $620,700 as of 9:44:32 a.m. Monday morning. And then, without any explanation, the stock crashed to just $185.10.

“All of a sudden there was a draw for $185. But there was nothing to reduce it level by level, which is what you would expect,” Saluzzi said. “It does not mean anything.”

The technical issues do not appear to have an impact on the stock market as a whole, which has been falling mainly due to concerns over economic growth.

Besides Berkshire, most suspended stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were trading only slightly up or down.

However, Barrick Gold (GOLD), a Canadian gold and copper producer, was trading at just 25 cents, down 98.5% on the day, according to Refinitiv. By midday, Barrick was back to normal, trading at $17.28, up 1.1% on the day.

NuScale Power (SMR), a maker of modular nuclear reactor technology that went public, was trading at just 13 cents, down 98.5% on the day. After NuScale reopened, it was trading at $8.29, down just 5%.

This story has been updated with additional developments and context.