Stocks were slumping overnight in the aftermath of the Hewlett-Packard miss after the bell yesterday.
The SP 500 futures made a dead hit on the 50 percent retracement level today, and then took off like a scalded cat in light volumes. I posted on this intraday here.
About 12:23 the Nasdaq exchange went down for the count, and quite a few stocks were no longer able to be traded, although the futures remained opened for business. Trading resumed at 3:25 PM although quotes were available before that.
I hear that trading could have occurred on the NYSE although no quotes would have been available. There is no real backup arrangement, and I suspect there will be more talk of this.
No one is talking about what was going on in the 'dark pools' during this hiatus.
I imagine that some day soon the mavens from the Nasdaq will reveal what went wrong, and the SEC will make the appropriate harrumphing noises, and point to Regulation SCI which they have open for comments on this matter, which was recently extended for even more comments. The regulation deals with system compliance and integrity.
I hate to say it but the level of discussion on Bloomberg TV this afternoon was taking the part of Wall Street and Jamie Dimon so vigorously that they made Andrew Ross Sorkin look like the Savonarola of big finance.
Have a pleasant evening.
