For the second time this week the worlds largest equity market halted due to a computer malfunction and connection-break down between two sizeable US Stock exchanges. According to CEO Robert Greifeld, NASDAQ froze trading for at least three hours to prevent information asymmetry amongst traders and to defend the integrity of markets. He also supported the development of a backup data feed to protect against these types of outages.

Greifeld said that NASDAQ needs to focus on improving their defensive driving capability as they move forward. According to Greifeld, for 20 years this system worked extraordinarily well, but it was the external environment that caused the problem.

Related article: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-23/nasdaq-shutdown-brings-half-of-stock-market-to-standstill.html