Nasdaq: Network failure at New Jersey facility caused data feed interruption, service resumed same day
On Thursday, the Nasdaq Exchange experienced a network outage that caused intermittent missing data feeds across all its U.S. stock markets. The issue was resolved after several hours.
The interruption occurred at approximately 11:27 a.m. Eastern Time, affecting three exchanges: Nasdaq, Nasdaq BX, and Nasdaq PSX. The problem originated from a data center facility in Carteret, New Jersey.
Nasdaq immediately advised clients to switch to the Chicago backup data feed and announced at 2:25 p.m. Eastern Time that "the previous intermittent data loss" had been restored. A company spokesperson confirmed in a statement:
Trading was not affected.
The market reaction was fairly calm. Shares of Nasdaq Inc. rose 1.5% on the day to $93.35.
Incident Details: Both Primary and Backup Data Sources Impacted
According to a Nasdaq system alert issued at 11:27:50 a.m. Eastern Time, the outage affected multiple multicast groups, disrupting both hardware and software data sources from the Carteret facility. This included both the primary "A" feed and the backup "B" feed.
All data sources for the three major U.S. stock markets—Nasdaq, Nasdaq BX, and Nasdaq PSX—were impacted. On its system status page, Nasdaq stated:
Clients are advised to use the Chicago data source as backup, as Chicago remains unaffected.
The company also said it is actively investigating the incident and apologized for the inconvenience. According to Reuters, citing people familiar with the matter, this was a routine network issue and had no impact on actual trading processes.
Data feed outages have always attracted significant industry attention. Such incidents can disrupt market order, undermine trader confidence, and potentially trigger regulatory scrutiny from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Although Nasdaq’s electronic trading platform usually operates reliably, the exchange operator has experienced several brief technology issues in recent years that impacted market activity.
It is still unclear whether Nasdaq plans to release a post-event investigation report on the Carteret facility incident. In the past, Nasdaq and its peers have sometimes proactively disclosed the root causes and corrective actions following data feed outages.
