Reuters: Global Markets: AEP, NextEra Energy shares tumble at opening; trades to stand

Reuters: Global Markets Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

AEP, NextEra Energy shares tumble at opening; trades to stand May 23rd 2013, 17:36 By Caroline Valetkevitch NEW YORK | Thu May 23, 2013 1:36pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shares of American Electric Power Inc (AEP.N) and NextEra Energy Inc (NEE.N) plunged more than 50 percent in the first seconds of trading on Thursday, the latest in a flurry of unexplained sharp moves for individual stocks. After a review of trades in those two stocks in the first minute of trading, the New York Stock Exchange said all of the trades will stand. However, it said all trades in AEP at or below $46.03 in that period, and all trades in NextEra at or below $76.19 will be marked with an "Aberrant Report Indicator." "Executions at these prices are still valid trades, but they will be excluded from the high and low data disseminated by the Consolidated Tape Association," the NYSE said in its statement. The sharp drops were the latest such incidents for the market since the May 2010 "flash crash," a computer-driven trading glitch that caused a quick afternoon tumble in the major U.S. indexes. Last week, the NYSE canceled trades in Anadarko Petroleum Corp (APC.N) after a blip in trading cut the market value of the company by 99 percent. AEP dropped as much as 54 percent, while NextEra sank 62 percent, both hitting their lowest price of the day right at the opening. Spokespeople for both AEP and NextEra said they had been in contact with the NYSE to figure out what had occurred, but had no further comments. Stock moves of 10 percent or more in a five-minute period usually trigger a trading halt, based on U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules, but the rules do not apply to the first fifteen minutes of trading or the last 30 minutes of a session. The exchanges are able to cancel trades in the event of irregular or erroneous activity. The SEC has approved a program called "limit up-limit down" on all major stock exchanges to reduce volatility of stock trades, but the program is just starting to be introduced on large-cap stocks. Hundreds of trades occurred in AEP and NextEra shares in the first minute of trading, though many of them were on small share volume, such as 100 or 200 shares. AEP's stock hit a low of $22.28, but last traded at $47.71, down 1.8 percent, while NextEra hit a low of $30.37 before recovering to trade at $77.77, down 1.8 percent. "Essentially you have a market that's unprotected for the first fifteen minutes of the day and the last half hour," said Joe Saluzzi, co-manager of trading at Themis Trading in Chatham, New Jersey. "Again, it's a confidence destroyer," he said, but he noted that newer changes to the trading systems should help prevent that problem from happening in the future. The limit up/limit down program aims to halt the trading of U.S.-listed stocks if they moved outside a recently traded price range. "Limit up/limit down was effective April 8, (but) there is a further rollout period by ticker in alphabetical order. So while a stock may be part of the S&P 500, it may not enter the pilot until a few weeks into the rollout," Credit Suisse analysts wrote in a recent research note. (Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by James Dalgleish, Jeffrey Benkoe and Marguerita Choy) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions