Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[Dances-W-waves]

Hey Zeev,

Is this why you didn't get your missing ingredient for a top?

http://www.thestreet.com/_tscbrk/options/stevensmith/10123617.html

Options Price Network Collapses

By Steven Smith
Staff Reporter
10/30/2003 05:26 PM EST
Click here for more stories by Steven Smith


The options markets were thrown into chaos Thursday afternoon by a technical glitch at a key price-distribution network. Officials believe the problem should be rectified by Friday morning.

The problem occurred at the Options Pricing Reporting Authority, or OPRA, which provides option prices and quotes to all five major options trading exchanges. It started at around 3:25 p.m. EST. OPRA is an independent vendor that all five option exchanges use for the dissemination of information.


The cause of the problem still isn't known. An official with OPRA said the company is investigating the cause, but believes the quote system should be functioning normally for Friday's trading.

A spokeswoman for the Chicago Board Options Exchange, a major market for trading options, said no trades were canceled because of the technical glitch.

It may have helped that the problem occurred close to the end of the trading day. Still, the glitch rattled traders because they couldn't tell when prices had been updated. Some firms didn't get any quotes at all.

"This has never happened before. We have no answers as to what caused the problem," said John Hester, of First Trader, a Chicago based options firm.

"Orders can be entered but we'd be flying in the dark for the last half hour. It left us with our hands in our pockets " complained Bill Ginsberg of Alzeon Capital, a New York based hedge fund.