The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) had to extend its trading hours last Thursday just before the 4th of July holiday in the US because of what it called "system irregularities" caused by a computer server problem that reportedly affected network connectivity.
This follows another NYSE problem the day before when for three hours an incorrect online notice was posted indicating that American International Group Inc. (AIG) had been suspended and delisted.
The NYSE has been having a bad run of IT problems the past few weeks since it completed in June a computer system upgrade that allowed the exchange to process trades in 5 milliseconds. As I blogged here last month, NYSE trading in 242 stocks had to be suspended for about an hour because of another (but different) computer server problem.
Robert N. Charette is a Contributing Editor to IEEE Spectrum and an acknowledged international authority on information technology and systems risk management. A self-described “risk ecologist,” he is interested in the intersections of business, political, technological, and societal risks. Charette is an award-winning author of multiple books and numerous articles on the subjects of risk management, project and program management, innovation, and entrepreneurship. A Life Senior Member of the IEEE, Charette was a recipient of the IEEE Computer Society’s Golden Core Award in 2008.
