#BATS caught in the #headlight, for a #bug

An alternative trading system (ATS) is a non-exchange trading venue approved by regulatory authorities. As electronic trading venues, ATS serve to provide an additional pool of liquidity to trade in existing instruments rather than to list new securities.

As one of the most successful ATS, Better Alternative Trading System (BATS) makes up more than 10% of stock trading each day. On the Friday of March 23, 2012, however, BATS was put into a very embarrassing situation where a software bug caused disrupted trading, causing a mini flash-crash in its own shares when it only went IPO on that same day. More famously, Apple—the most valuable stock in the country—was affected too, which was halted for five minutes, causing it to slump nearly 10% before recovering.

This again raised people’s concern and suspicion of high speed/high frequency, as this incident reminded everyone of the May 2010 Flash Crash that brought high frequency trading into the center of trading industry.

HF traders and executives from the world’s best ATS, such as Saro Jahani—CIO of Direct Edge, Chuck Chon—Co-CEO of SBI Japannext, Evgeni Mitkov—CEO of SURFACExchange, will gather at the High Frequency Trading World and Exchange Technology World in Chicago to address such challenges. The Trading Show Chicago 2012 event will present even more current issues that the trading industry concerns about.