The New York Stock Exchange (Nyse) experienced delays on Tuesday afternoon as 2.41 billion shares traded hands amidst a major US equities sell-off. The heavy volumes also caused a sudden mid-afternoon plunge in the Dow Jones industrial average.
Reuters quotes a Nyse spokesperson as saying there were intermittent delays that were being looked into.
The glitch could be an indication that Nyse's recently implemented hybrid market, which integrates floor-based trading with automated capabilities, was not prepared to handle such large spikes in volume.
The volume of shares trading hands was well above last year's estimated daily average of 1.84 billion. The heavy volumes are being attributed to a plunge in China's equity market fanning over-valuation worries and other data indicating a potential slowdown in US economic growth.
The Associated Press, meanwhile, reports that the heavy trading volume led Dow Jones & Co to switch to a back-up server in mid-afternoon, causing an immediate 200-point drop in the index. It closed down 416.02 for the day.
Dow Jones Indexes today explained that a system problem beginning at 1:50 pm yesterday caused a 70-minute lag in correctly calculating the value of the Index and the subsequent downward spike in the reported index value when the problem was corrected at 3:00 pm. Michael Petronella, president, Dow Jones Indexes, says the problem arose due to latency issues in the system responsible for feeding market data into the calculation system.
The US markets weren't the only ones to suffer delays due to high volumes. The Singapore Stock Exchange says that high volumes have caused congestion in the retrieval and display of order information on the majority of trading terminals, including SESOPS and members' own order management systems.