Looks like the Big Board isn’t big enough for four-digit stock prices.
The New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday halted trading of four companies including Amazon and Google’s parent company Alphabet, with insiders citing a glitch with stocks that trade above $1,000.
One source familiar with the situation told The Post the NYSE was grappling with a “formatting error” as the exchange warned traders of a “price scale code issue” in an alert at 12:24 p.m. ET.
“It sounds like the system — kind of like with Y2K years ago — is having issues with prices over $1,000 since very few stocks are at that level,” one trader told The Post.
While the shares continued to trade on other exchanges where they’re listed, including the Nasdaq, they never resumed changing hands on the Big Board after getting halted around lunchtime.
The embarrassing stumble happened on the first day the high-dollar stocks — which also included Booking Holdings, formerly Priceline; and Zion Oil & Gas — were available to trade on the NYSE.
Earlier this month NYSE allowed trading of Nasdaq-listed companies on the floor of the exchange. The full roll-out of the listed securities was scheduled for Wednesday, according to an April 9 NYSE post.
“To minimize the impact to the small subset of clients impacted by the issues, we suspended trading in those affected symbols,” NYSE spokeswoman Kristen Kaus told The Post.
Although the trades were executed properly, some post-trade reports were incorrect, according to a source. The exchange expects to have the problem fixed by Thursday, Kaus said.
This isn’t the first time NSYE has experienced a problem trading stock.
In July, 2015, the exchange shut down for nearly four hours after a glitch halted trading.
Last month, the Securities and Exchange Commission fined the exchange $14 million for that trading halt and other violations.


