An IT glitch has led to wild price moves on traders’ terminals for Nasdaq-listed stocks including Apple and Google. Some stocks plunged or rose by as much as 80 percent but were never sold at the erroneous prices.Nasdaq on Tuesday blamed a testing error sent to several third party finance sites for the publication of wildly inaccurate market data for some of the US’s largest traded stocks.
US media said some terminals showed shares in online retailer Amazon plunging 87 percent, while Microsoft shares climbed 79 percent.
At one point, shares in auction site eBay were up 254 percent and video game developer Zynga rocketed more than 3,000 per cent.
At other times, the market data reset shares in major corporations like Apple, Google, and Microsoft to $123.47 (109 euros) each.
The glitch happened after the close of the US markets on Monday.
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The Financial Times reported that several finance houses in Asia received bewildered calls from clients asking what had happened.
Several US media outlets said Bloomberg terminals, along with the Google Finance and Yahoo Finance portals were affected by the glitch.
Nasdaq said the data was sent to third party providers was part of “normal evening test procedures,” and requested all third parties to revert to its official closing prices.
A spokesman for the US tech stock exchange said the actual prices of the stocks were never affected and no trades were completed at the erroneous prices.
New York Stock Exchange data were unaffected by the glitch.
The US markets are closed on Tuesday for the Fourth of July Independence Day public holiday.
