Nasdaq, the exchange on which major U.S. technology giants are listed, said on Monday it had fixed a technical glitch that disrupted communications for more than two hours and that all systems were back up and running normally.
The company did not give details on the severity of the problem, which was the second technical glitch in recent months, but said it was related to the matching mechanism – the software systems that match buy and sell orders. The incident began around 4:55 a.m. ET, according to the exchange’s website.

Thousands of stocks are traded on the Nasdaq, including shares of iPhone maker Apple, electric car maker Tesla and semiconductor maker Nvidia.
Technical glitches at exchanges can jolt markets, undermine traders’ confidence and attract the attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Seth Golden, president of investment research firm Finom Group, said some stocks showed unusually wide spreads – the gap between the price buyers offer for a share and the offer price of sellers.

“The Nasdaq Stock Market has corrected earlier problems with the matching mechanism and all systems are operating normally. Nasdaq will provide full details of what happened when they are available,” the company said on its website. It did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment.
The problem also led to self-help statements about Nasdaq from Cboe and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Both statements were later withdrawn.
Self-help is a notice issued by a trading exchange when another exchange has internal problems processing trades and orders are routed through alternative venues.

The glitch on Nasdaq affected orders sent through the “RASH FIX” order processing system. FIX, or Financial Information Exchange, is a messaging protocol that defines an electronic messaging protocol for transmitting information about securities trades between two parties.
Disruptions at major exchanges have been mostly subdued in recent years. Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B Riley Wealth, said the technical error on the Nasdaq “will not create any ongoing problems.”

“This problem occurred during very quiet pre-market hours and was quickly fixed,” he said.

In December, Nasdaq experienced a system error that affected stock orders and more than 50 of the exchange’s customers.

Its rival NYSE also suffered a glitch last year that prevented auctions on a number of stocks from opening, leading to a widespread trading halt, confusion over whether orders were being filled at the correct prices and disrupting trades in more than 250 securities.