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To: Oblomov who wrote (169937)	6/3/2002 6:25:59 PM
From: patron_anejo_por_favor	Respond to of 436258

Have to admit, this Knight Trading glitch has to be one of the funniest cluster-shags of the year!<G> biz.yahoo.com Software Snafu Slams Knight Trading By Ross Finley NEW YORK (Reuters) - Knight Trading Group Inc. (NasdaqNM:NITE - News), a key U.S. share dealer, said on Monday its stock price fell more than 50 percent in before-the-bell trading as a software glitch triggered an accidental wave of selling in its own shares. The stock dipped as low as $3 but recouped most of its losses after trading resumed at midsession. Shares closed down about 6.8 percent, or 43 cents, at $5.92 from the Friday close. The Nasdaq market had halted trading in the stock about three-quarters of an hour before the 9:30 a.m. (1330 GMT) opening bell, pending news. Traders earlier attributed the stock's drop to speculation about a possible federal investigation of the Jersey City, New Jersey-based firm. The sudden plunge in price and the chatter that ensued underscored the tense mood on Wall Street, with investors on edge about news of investigations into some large U.S. corporations charged with fraudulent bookkeeping or other violations. News or even rumors of probes have battered the share value of companies once viewed as safe investments, like Merrill Lynch and Co. Inc. (NYSE:MER - News) and Tyco International Ltd. (NYSE:TYC - News). "There's nothing ill flying around," Thomas Joyce, Knight Trading's chief executive, said in an interview. "One error in an electronically-generated order does not relate to an accounting issue." He said Knight's balance sheet and fundamentals were solid. A software patch created to correct a bug in the coding of the operating system went awry and executed a series of sell orders of Knight's own stock with a very low limit price at which the stock could no longer be sold, Joyce said. The accidental selling of its own shares had no effect on normal client business, he said. The number of Knight shares sold "was in the neighborhood of high six figures," Joyce said. Traders earlier said the company may have accidentally sold as many as 1 million of its own shares, well over the average 806,000 shares traded daily over the last month. Such a huge order was likely to swing the stock price, especially in before-the-bell trading, when volumes are light. The Nasdaq stock market on Monday canceled all trades in Knight from 8:23:00 a.m. (12:23:00 GMT) to 8:48:44 a.m. (12:48:44 GMT). In January, Knight was fined more than $1.5 million for a series of violations, including failing to honor trades at prices it publicly posted. It was the largest-ever penalty imposed by the National Association of Securities Dealers for the violations involved. Knight was ordered to pay a $700,000 fine to the NASD and $800,000, plus interest, to its clients. The fine coincided with the departure of Kenneth Pasternak, who founded Knight Trading in 1995. The firm had no permanent leader until last week when stock trading veteran Thomas Joyce was named president and chief executive, replacing interim CEO Anthony Sanfilippo. Shares in Knight, which reported a loss in the first quarter of the year, have tumbled from a peak of more than $80 in late 1999, when equity markets were booming.