By Kaitlyn Kiernan
Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. briefly halted trading at one of its three
options exchanges Friday due to a computer-server problem.
Trading in options on stocks with ticker symbols that begin with
A through M, including heavily traded Apple Inc. and iShares
Russell 2000 exchange-traded fund contracts, was halted on the
Nasdaq Options Market for 18 minutes. Trading reopened at 12 p.m.
EST, the exchange operator said. Nasdaq issued a series of alerts
to traders about the halt and restart.
The issue was traced to problems with processing incoming data
from a benchmark data feed that supplies options prices to traders,
a spokesman for Nasdaq said. No other options exchanges, including
Nasdaq's other two options markets, experienced problems during the
halt.
"The reliability of our market systems is essential to our
ability to provide a fair and efficient trading environment for our
clients and other market participants," the spokesman said. "We
have committed our full resources to identify the root cause of
this U.S. options data issue."
The issue was the latest in a rash of technology breakdowns to
strike critical trading systems, sometimes freezing trade and
calling into question the ability of exchanges and regulators to
manage the complex web of electronic systems that underlie U.S.
financial markets.
Technical problems in November forced Nasdaq to halt trading
entirely at the Nasdaq Options Market, or NOM, for much of a Friday
trading session.
In September, the entire U.S. options market ground to a halt
because of problems with the Options Price Reporting Authority, or
OPRA. The data feed has been the subject of discussions between
exchange executives and regulators as a centralize, single point of
failure for multiple options markets.
OPRA, which is the electronic pipeline delivering information on
options trades and quotes to brokers and investors, was operating
normally during the outage, said Jim Roche, vice president of
OPRA.
The Nasdaq Options Market was the sixth-largest of 12 U.S.
options exchanges by trading volume in 2013, according to data from
options clearinghouse OCC, with 7.9% of options trading volume last
year. Nasdaq OMX's Philadelphia-based trading venue PHLX was the
second-largest exchange, with nearly 17% of volume. The Chicago
Board Options Exchange tops the list with 26% of trading volume.
Nasdaq also own the BX Options exchange, with less than 1% of
overall volume.
Write to Kaitlyn Kiernan at kaitlyn.kiernan@wsj.com
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