Can You Tell Something Went Wrong?

Check out the intra-day chart of Facebook ($FB). Starting at noon, it completely flatlines. The volume also dried up.

Here’s what happened:

Trading Halted in Nasdaq Securities

U.S. stock exchanges on Thursday halted trading in all securities listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market NDAQ because of a technical issue, exchange officials said.

Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. announced the halt at 12:15 p.m. ET Thursday, and other exchanges followed suit. Nasdaq also said it was halting trade in its options markets. A spokesman for Nasdaq declined further comment.

Notices of halts in individual securities started to cross the wire at about 12:18 p.m. ET in alphabetical order by ticker symbol, starting with the exchange-traded fund iShares MSCI All Country Asia Information Technology ETF, ticker AAIT.

The issue stemmed from a data feed that provides market data for Nasdaq-listed securities, the exchanges said in notices sent to traders.

Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on August 22nd, 2013 at 12:45 pm

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