Erroneous test data provided by third party vendors caused wild swings on prominent Nasdaq stocks in after hours trading on the eve of the 4 July US holiday celebrations.
The prices of several stocks appeared on some major finance websites to either spike or plummet after market close, with more than a dozen major Nasdaq listed companies such as Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft all set to the same share price of $123.47.
"As part of its normal process, the UTP distributed test data and certain third parties improperly propagated the data. Nasdaq is working with third-party vendors to resolve the matter,” says the exchange operator in a statement.
The release of the bogus data to prominent sites such as Yahoo, Google and Bloomberg caused confusion in the market, with shares in Microsoft appearing to fall by 50%, while Apple's stock showed a 348% spike.
The actual prices of the stocks were not affected and no trades were completed at that price, a Nasdaq spokesman confirms.