NASDAQ OMX issued the following statement:
Earlier today, the Securities Information Processor (SIP), which consolidates and disseminates prices for the industry, experienced a six-minute outage in one of six of the quote dissemination channels, specifically in symbols PC through SPZ. The issue was promptly resolved. Trading systems were not affected, and the market closed at the end of the trading day in an orderly manner.
The incident will be reviewed by the Unlisted Trading Privileges Securities Information Processor committee (UTP SIP committee), a 15-member committee of exchanges, market participants and regulators that oversee the system. NASDAQ OMX, the operator of the SIP, communicated closely with the investing public, the UTP SIP committee, market participants, other exchanges and regulators.
A preliminary review of the incident found that the SIP experienced a hardware memory failure in a back-end server at 11:35 a.m. ET, affecting price quotes for a limited range of Tape C securities (PC through SPZ). The system successfully failed over and operated normally to disseminate price quotes.
We will continue to work closely with UTP SIP committee members and regulators to make sure the issues that arose today are addressed.