A computer glitch at the Nasdaq stock market late Wednesday led to the posting of incorrect stock price quotes on many of the world's financial Web sites throughout Thursday.
The markets were informed of the problems - which affected mostly Nyse and Amex-listed stock - by a news alert sent late Thursday afternoon.
The snafu arose before the closing bell Wednesday afternoon when Nasdaq experienced a problem in submitting transactions in Nyse and Amex-listed securities to the Consolidated Tape. Approximately 81,000 trade reports were rejected from 3:39pm (EST) through the end of the day. In addition, there were approximately 650 transactions that occurred at 9:50am that were resubmitted at approximately 5:50pm without the proper modifiers, potentially affecting last sale.
As a result of the failings, individual investors using popular financial sites like MSN Money or Yahoo Finance, and at some of the major online brokerages, were exposed to erroneous price information throughout Thursday.