NYSE 'Technical Issue' Incorrectly Shows Berkshire Hathaway Stock Down 100%
A glitch caused trading websites to display a near 100% loss for Berkshire Hathaway shares for much of Monday morning, falsely suggesting the conglomerate helmed by billionaire investor Warren Buffett went from a market capitalization of almost $900 billion to below $1 billion—but the error was later fixed.
Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate helmed by billionaire Warren Buffett, did not in fact lose ... [+] almost its entire $900 billion market capitalization.
Getty Images Key FactsThe New York Stock Exchange said it’s “currently investigating” the “technical issue” causing the error attributed to a limit up-limit down pause (LULD), which halts trading for stocks outside of a predetermined range.
The error caused trading platforms and websites to incorrectly display a 99.97% loss for Class A shares of Berkshire, whose less expensive “baby Berkshire” Class B shares were down a far more palatable 1% as its big brother was halted.
Other stocks halted due to the error included Chipotle and GameStop and AMC, the latter two of whom were involved in the recent meme stock frenzy.
Berkshire stock resumed trading at 11:35 a.m. ET after a nearly two-hour pause.
The cause of the glitch is not yet known, but a spokesperson for the NYSE told the Financial Times the exchange does not suspect a cyber attack.
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Key BackgroundMonday morning’s blip displayed Berkshire’s Class A’s share price at $185.10, which would have been its lowest level since 1979, according to FactSet, a fraction of its actual $635,000 share price. Forbes’ real-time billionaires tracker briefly showed Buffett, who is the seventh-richest person in the world, as losing $136 billion on Monday, knocking out almost all of his fortune. A majority of Buffett’s fortune is thanks to his roughly 15% stake in Berkshire, whose holdings include subsidiaries like GEICO and sizable investments in companies like Apple.
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