Investors who bought shares in Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway at a huge discount yesterday will see their trades canceled after a technical glitch on the stock market.
On June 3, a data glitch caused the global conglomerate’s share price to fall to $185 per share, after previously closing at more than $620,000. The drop marked a discount of more than 99% for the Warren Buffett-led company.
This means that a trader who bought just $925 worth of stock at the lowest price would see his investment worth more than $3 million today.
While it has not been confirmed how many people bought Class A shares during the technical glitch – which lasted about an hour and a half – the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) quickly undid their trades.
In an update posted last night at 9 p.m., NYSE said it would “bust” all “erroneous” trades in Berkshire Hathaway stock at or below $603,718.30 per share.
The issue, the exchange added, is related to a problem at the Consolidated Tape Association (CTA), which provides real-time information on prices and transactions on the exchange. The CTA oversees a portion of the Securities Information Processor (SIP) that consolidates all protected bid/ask quotes and transactions into a single data stream.
The CTA said it was experiencing issues with price banding that “may be related to a new software release” on SIP. As a result, the CTA has reverted to the previous version of the software. The CTA did not immediately respond Fortune’s request for comment.
During the dip, the NYSE has halted certain trades and will attempt to determine which ones are incorrect and therefore eligible for cancellation. The technical issue has now been resolved and all tickers are trading normally.
Traders who didn’t jump on a discounted Berkshire Hathaway stock but did buy deeply discounted shares of other brands will also be subject to a delisting of their trade – with the ruling not subject to appeal.
Other tickers affected include US restaurant chain Chipotle (CMG), mining company Barrack Gold Corporation (GOLD) and meme stock darling GameStop (GME).
For Berkshire Hathaway, the good news is that its Class B shares (BRK.B) were not affected by the ticker issue, and its Class A shares closed at more than $631,000 per share.
Berkshire Hathaway did not immediately respond Fortune’s request for comment.
Costly mistakes
Mega-buy Berkshire Hathaway is one of many hiccups plaguing several international exchanges – and it’s unlikely to be the last.
Just last week, live data from the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average disappeared from traders’ screens for about an hour. Financial times reported. The system then functioned normally again, but the cause of the malfunction is under investigation.
While the NYSE issue has been resolved with limited impact, the same cannot be said of an LSE incident that cost Wall Street giant Citigroup tens of millions.
In May 2022, a London trader bypassed hundreds of warning alerts to create a basket worth $444 billion.
While $255 billion was blocked from trading by Citi’s internal management systems, a basket worth $189 billion was still released to global markets.
A total of $1.4 billion worth of shares were sold on various European exchanges before the trader canceled the order. Citi was fined nearly $70 million by the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority over its regulatory and related matters.
This story originally appeared on Fortune.com
