A stock market data error this evening set an undetermined number of companies listed on the Nasdaq exchange to a share price of $123.47, sending some tech companies’ stock prices crashing and others’ soaring. In a statement obtained by the Financial Times, Nasdaq said the culprit was “improper use of test data” that was picked up by third party financial data providers. The exchange said it was “working with third party vendors to resolve this matter.”
Data glitch sets tech company stock prices at $123.47
Amazon went down 87 percent, and Zynga was up 3,292 percent
Amazon went down 87 percent, and Zynga was up 3,292 percent
Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images
is a Senior Producer on Decoder. Previously, he reported on the technology and gaming industries for more than a decade.
The issue was replicated across major financial websites, including Bloomberg, Google Finance, and Yahoo Finance, and it’s not known when it all started. But stock notifications for tech companies started pouring in at some point this evening, resulting in quite a few tweets on the matter:
For a company like Amazon, which enjoyed an opening price of $972.79 a share, the error has had a catastrophic effect on the appearance of its market cap. For other companies, like struggling Facebook game maker Zynga, the error is a bit of good news, if only for the fleeting perception of improbable success:
Update 10:55PM ET, 7/3: Included Nasdaq’s statement on the matter attributing the error to an “improper use of test data.” The headline of the article has also been updated to reflect this.
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