Bats Global Markets has been forced to rescind its own IPO after a rush of orders overwhelmed price discovery mechanisms, sending its stock to near-zero and tirggering a circuit breaker on trading of Apple shares.
Following its initial public offering at $16 a share, Bats opened at $15.25 today but then news of a systems problem saw trading at less than one cent, according to Bloomberg data.
Nasdaq OMX Group says the trades were cancelled and Bats was forced to suspended its own stock until further notice.
To compound the company's woes, a single trade for 100 shares carried out on its own platform briefly sent Apple's share price plummeting to $542.80, says Bloomberg, triggering a circuit breaker halt.
In a statement, Bats attributed the breakdown to "a software bug related to IPO auctions which rendered open customer orders in this symbol range (A-BFZZZ)inaccessible".
After restoring trading early afternoon, Bats announced that it was withdrawing its IPO, which was scheduled to close on March 28, 2012.
In a brief statement, a red-faced Joe Ratterman, chairman, president and CEO of Bats Global Markets said: "Although our affected market has reopened, in the wake of today's technical issues, which affected the trading of certain stocks, including that of Bats, we believe withdrawing the IPO is the appropriate action to take for our company and our shareholders"