Nasdaq Network Disruption Causes Data Gaps Across US Stock Markets

NEW YORK. Nasdaq said on Thursday that a network disruption at its Carteret facility in New Jersey was causing intermittent gaps in the data feeds for all of its United States equities markets. Reuters reported the disruption at 15:57 UTC, citing a system status message from the exchange operator. Seeking Alpha, reporting the company's statement the same afternoon, said Nasdaq was investigating the problem.

The affected markets are Nasdaq itself, Nasdaq Texas and Nasdaq PSX. Reports based on the status message said the disruption hit multiple multicast groups originating from Carteret, and warned customers that they may see intermittent data gaps across all feeds. Market data feeds are the stream of prices and trade reports that brokers, trading firms and news services use to show what stocks are doing, second by second.

Carteret is home to Nasdaq's primary data center, the site in New Jersey where its US markets run. A problem there does not stay local for long, because firms across the country take their prices from those feeds.

A rough day already

The disruption landed in the middle of a hard session for technology shares. At the open in New York, Reuters reported, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 266.74 points, or 0.52 percent, to 51,888.22, while the S&P 500 lost 33.35 points, or 0.43 percent, to 7,685.59, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 329.86 points, or 1.24 percent, to 26,363.01.

By 11:38 a.m. in New York, The Motley Fool reported, the Dow was up 0.98 percent to 52,126, the S&P 500 was up 0.10 percent to 7,727, and the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.36 percent to 26,600, with healthcare shares leading and energy and technology shares falling. Gold was up 1.18 percent to 4,154.09 dollars an ounce, and the 10 year Treasury yield was trading at 5.10 percent.

Thursday's trade followed a hot producer prices report earlier in the day. US producer prices jumped 1.3 percent in September, a reading that kept pressure on the AI and chip stocks that have led this week's selloff across Seoul, Tokyo and New York.

What is not yet known

Neither report said that trading itself had halted. What Nasdaq described was a data problem: gaps in the feeds, not a stop to buying and selling. In the messages reported on Thursday afternoon, the company gave no cause for the disruption and no time by which it expected the feeds to run normally again. It said only that it was investigating.

That leaves traders in an awkward spot. Orders can still be placed on an exchange, but the prices on screens come from the feeds. When those feeds have gaps, firms cannot be sure the price they see is the latest one, and many slow down or pull back until the picture is complete again.

This is a developing story. The Orbit Post will update it when Nasdaq reports that the disruption is cleared, or gives a cause.