By FLOYD NORRIS
Published: December 6, 2003
A computer system gone amok combined with intensely competitive stock markets and indecision by Nasdaq officials to create wild trading in a single stock yesterday.
…The problem appears to have begun with an order to sell that was entered into a system that Gr8Trade, a subsidiary of Instinet Group, leases to brokerage firms. … "There was some sort of system glitch," said Andrew Goldman, executive vice president of Instinet Group. "We are trying to figure out precisely what it was and who caused it. It appears that the result was an unintended effect on the stock in question."
Other market officials said that the sell order apparently went into an electronic loop, endlessly repeating. Then automatic systems sprayed those orders throughout the market. The price plunged, falling from $57.50 at 10:46 a.m. to a low of $39.25 at 10:54 a.m.
Asked if the event could have been the result of someone's tampering with the trading company's software in an attempt to manipulate the market, Instinet's Director of Information Systems Integrity, Dr. Crypto, denied any such possibility.
Asked if he was the same Dr. Crypto who gained his fame by hacking in the World Banks' Overseas payment clearance system last year and diverting several billion dollars to a scheme to build a weather-control machine, the executive replied "Foolish Mortal! The man you speak of is still awaiting trial, and could not possibly have escaped from cell 23D6 at the Fort Huachuca Supervillain Work Farm."
The recent tock glitch is not the only problem at Instinet. An employee known only as 'Little Timmy' in Customer Service fell out a sealed 22nd floor window last week, after publicly accusing Dr. Crypto of being the mysterious stranger who killed the previous head of corporate security in a ninja-style battle the previous month.
Nonetheless, the new head of corporate security, Mr. Cyclops, assured us that Crypto was certainly not a mutant or supervillain, any more he himself was, and advised reporters not to catch Timmy's Disease. Asked why his university diploma was from "The Stasi Institute of Subversion and Mayhem," Cyclops spoke at length about the pervasivness of Ivy-league bias in the business world, adding bitterly "it's all about who you know, isn't it? Thank God for the memory-transfer machine." He paused, then added "I mean Fax. Thank God for the Fax machine. Now leave while my good humor remains."
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