

NASDAQ cancelling some trades made today between 2:40 and 3:00 EST - awa
http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/Trader.aspx?id=MarketSystemStatus

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Qz
Sucks to be me, I sold at the beginning of the drop, but outside of the range
of canceled trades -- now it's over my sell price, so I lose money for being
quick :(.

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chasingsparks
If it was an error, this is the wrong way to think about things. People who
had short positions with GTC limits deep into the range traveled also could
have made a bundle. The limit orders would have executed damn fast.

If this was an error though, Nasdaq (or I assume the clearing houses more
precisely) are doing exactly the right thing. Imagine if they didn't reverse
the orders and it came out that a wall street firm happened to make 10% on a
huge position today. With the way things are, someone would break out the
guillotine.

(Edit: Bias Note: I've had May Put options at 118 on SPY since Tuesday. I did
not close my position, so feel free to accuse me of being jealous ;))

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Qz
Oh I'm not complaining that trades are being canceled. My thing is that if it
hadn't been an error, then I would have been in a good position by selling
early. But since it seems to have been an error, then my selling early
disqualifies me from getting the order canceled, so I lose out for making what
seemed like the right move at the time.

~~~
chasingsparks
Ah okay. Then yes, I agree with you in in that case. Going from an expected
single day 10% return to not a single day 10% return is unpleasant.

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apike
Here is the press release:
<http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/TraderNews.aspx?id=ETA2010-30>

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adriand
I always enjoy reading about the IT screw ups of very large corporations,
because how can one of my clients be too angry with me in the rare situation
when something goes awry on our servers? No one is immune from mistakes.

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pw0ncakes
This is normal procedure. In the US, if a trade is an obvious rip-off to one
party, the exchange usually cancels it. It's better to be horribly incompetent
and off by 50% than marginally incompetent and make a trade that's 0.5% bad.

In Japan, on the other hand...

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ig1
Yep. In most of the western world "accidental" trades are normally reversed
over a handshake, japan has a much more mercenary attitude of "you screw up
you lose".

