The New York Stock Exchange is taking no chances with next month’s IPO of Alibaba Group Holding and is offering exchange members a second weekend where they can test their internal trading systems with NYSE’s IPO trading logic.
On 6 September, NYSE will make all production customer-gateway connections available to handle order flow as well as receiving securities information processor and proprietary market data feeds and imbalance feeds.
The exchange operator is keen to ensure the smooth running of what is likely to be one of the biggest IPOs of the year and could raise more than US$20 billion.
US equities markets have had a poor record with IPOs since 2012 when BATS Global Markets had to cancel its own IPO due to a software glitch in its IPO processing software. A few months later, Nasdaq OMX botched Facebook’s IPO and eventually paid out US$41.6 million in compensation to exchange members who lost money due to trade confirmation errors during the listing.