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To: TraderAlan who wrote (7776)	11/13/1999 10:22:00 AM
From: TFF	Respond to of 12617

Merrill Lynch Has Trouble Processing Trading Orders (Nov. 10, 1999) By KEVIN MAX NYTimes.com/TheStreet.com nother big volume day for the Nasdaq, another headache for Merrill Lynch, as its customers spent a second anxious trading session not knowing at what prices their Nasdaq orders would be executed. Wednesday's glitch came from "remediation" work on Tuesday's problem, according to Merrill Lynch vice president manager of technology communications Bobbie Collins. Tuesday Merill Lynch brokers could not process buy or sell orders on their computer terminals because of a failure due to a "normal scheduled upgrade," according to a Merrill Lynch spokeswoman quoted in The New York Times Wednesday. "We had a problem with the mainframe," Collins noted. The problem for Merrill could not have come at a worst time as the Nasdaq traded a record 1.4 billion shares Tuesday and was trading in heavy volume again Wednesday. Around the 9:30 a.m. EST opening of the Nasdaq Tuesday, brokers noticed they could receive but not execute orders. "The orders were taken but held in cue," said Collins. Without a trade confirmation, customers did not know at what price their orders were executed. The problem persisted for three hours. Wednesday's glitch arose at the market open and lasted through 11:00 a.m. EST, said Collins. "In most cases this work happens on the weekends. This was scheduled during the week," she said. Collins promised that Merrill customers "will be made whole." The company will match the time the order was placed with published trade prices, she said, to give traders the prices they deserve. She was not aware of any more scheduled upgrades. But Merrill is just one of many outages among online brokers. Schwab, E*Trade and National Discount Brokers can commiserate. For instance, on Monday, NDB's online trading system was down because of a glitch in its mainframe hardware. "We have a fully redundant backup system that works 99 percent of the time," said Dennis Marino, chief technology officer at NDB. "Monday was that one time when gremlins got in there and prevented a seamless transition between the two." The safety net wasn't completely depleted as 90 phone representatives handled a record volume of calls from desperate customers. Customers could also trade through touch-tone phones. Responding to Merrill's recent problems, Marino said, "You want to give yourself a day or two for the big changes." Every online brokerage, he added, has its challenges, and technology changes so quickly that weekday upgrades are inevitable

To: TraderAlan who wrote (7776)	11/16/1999 5:25:00 PM
From: TFF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12617

Nasdaq Says Systems Failed for 17 Minutes Near End of Session Nasdaq Says Systems Failed for 17 Minutes Near End of Session New York, Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) -- The Nasdaq Stock Market said its electronic trading systems were disrupted from 3:40 p.m. to 3:57 p.m. on Nasdaq's seventh-busiest day ever. The breakdown forced traders to handle transactions over the telephone and on electronic trading networks. Nasdaq said its trade reporting and quotation systems failed because of ''technical problems'' it didn't specify. The problems made it impossible for traders to view the current price or last trade of Nasdaq stocks. SelectNet, which lets Nasdaq traders view other desks' offers to buy or sell shares and send messages to execute a trade, were among the systems that failed. Nasdaq, which traded 1.35 billion shares today and is home to computer-related icons Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp., has struggled with its systems this year. Last month, it removed stock quotes from three of the largest electronic communications networks, or ECNs, because of problems with Nasdaq software. Nasdaq's trading systems failed for 85 minutes on March 5 because of technical problems. Bloomberg LP, parent of Bloomberg News, owns the Bloomberg TradeBook ECN.