BATS... When An Exchange Cannot Even IPO Its Own Stock (BATS)

BATS Global Markets, Inc. is facing the ultimate embarrassment over its initial public offering of its own exchange.  While touting itself as an alternative to NASDAQ and to the NYSE. the exchange did not even function properly when the parent company tried to conduct its own initial public offering.  Now the BATS has formally withdrawn its planned initial public offering.

A statement from the exchange was as follows, “Although our affected market has reopened, in the wake of today’s technical issues, which affected the trading of certain stocks, including that of BATS, we believe withdrawing the IPO is the appropriate action to take for our Company and our shareholders.”

This was truly an embarrassment for the company and it is probably more than assumption that some technicians and technology staff just lost their jobs.  What happens when an initial public offering of a stock exchange cannot trade because of technical glitches?  It is called amateur hour.

Another statement from BATS about the problems earlier in the day was as follows: “This morning at 10:45 a.m. ET, BATS BZX Exchange experienced a systems issue affecting trades in securities in symbol range A through BF…. As a result of this systems issue, three erroneous trades occurred on the BATS BYX Exchange in Apple Inc. (APPL), one of which caused a volatility halt in that stock. The erroneous trades were broken under BATS’ clearly erroneous trade policy.”

BATS was supposed to be one of the top 17 IPOs of 2012.  What a joke.

JON C. OGG