[Infowarrior] - Technical Glitch Hits Dow Average But Prices Are Not Affected

[Richard Forno]

Glitch Hits Dow Average But Prices Are Not Affected
By Reuters | 27 Feb 2007 | 07:25 PM
http://www.cnbc.com/id/17369561

A technical glitch hit the system that calculates the Dow Jones industrial
average on Tuesday, but it did not affect stock prices, a spokeswoman for
Dow Jones Indexes said.

With an hour left to trade, the Dow Jones industrial average fell more than
500 points as it abruptly added about 200 points to its slide in late
afternoon trade.

"At around 2 p.m. we realized extraordinarily heavy volume coming in and
that caused a delay in the Dow Jones data system," said Sybille Reitz. "As a
result the calculation of the Dow average temporarily lagged behind the
market decline. We then switched over to a backup system, which resulted in
a rapid catch up in the published value of the Dow," she said.

Reitz added that at no point did the swing in the index affect stock prices.
"The calculation is absolutely correct, we just had a delay in the output."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down 416 points, erasing all of this
year's gains. The Standard & Poor's 500 index and Nasdaq Composite also
dropped more than 3%, an exclamation point on a global sell-off that began
with the worst one-day slide in Chinese stocks in a decade.