Nasdaq Endures Temporary Shutdown of Stock-Trading Systems

Friday, March 9, 2001 3:29PM EST

NEW YORK -- The Nasdaq Stock Market experienced problems with two of its principal stock-trading systems Friday, resulting in a temporary shutdown.

Nasdaq's SelectNet and SOES systems stopped working properly sometime early Friday afternoon. Island ECN Inc., a major alternative stock-trading system, said the trouble started at about 1:32 p.m. EST.

In a statement, Nasdaq said that SelectNet and SOES were sidelined for about 17 minutes, begining shortly before 1:33 p.m. In the meantime, Nasdaq trading continued through other means, including over the telephone and via stock dealers' proprietary systems.

The problems were rooted in a 'hardware failure' in Nasdaq's computer network that took place at about 1:25 p.m. and temnporarily interrupted the dissemination of stock-market data, Nasdaq said. That eventually led to the suspension of trading on SelectNet and SOES.

Problems with Nasdaq's systems resonate throughout the stock market because they are used all over Wall Street. SelectNet is an automated market service used by Nasdaq traders to route orders, negotiate terms and execute trades. SOES, which stands for Small Order Execution System, is an automated system that processes Nasdaq orders of up to 1,000 shares.

http://dowjones.work.com/index.asp?layout=story_mkt_main&doc_id=40692&industry=U%2ES%2E+Stocks

-- Doris (nocents@bellsouth.net), March 10, 2001