Google Share Plunge To Be Erased By Nasdaq

Google shares appeared to drop to 1 cent per share on Tuesday, an event that prompted Nasdaq officials to begin investigating "potentially erroneous" Google stock transactions, according to Reuters.

Google's share price closed at $320.50 on Tuesday, down more than 15%. The company's after-hours share price had risen to $415 at the time this article was filed, reflecting news of Nasdaq's commitment to address the error with a share price adjustment.

In an e-mailed statement, a Nasdaq spokesman explained, "The canceled trades were triggered by erroneous orders that were routed to Nasdaq from another market center."

On its Web site, Nasdaq explained, "Pursuant to Rule 11890(b) NASDAQ, on its own motion, has determined to cancel all trades in security Google Inc Cl - A 'GOOG' at or above $425.29 and at or below $400.52 that were executed in NASDAQ between 15:57:00 and 16:02:00 ET. In addition, NASDAQ will be adjusting the NASDAQ Official Closing Cross (NOCP) and all trades executed in the cross to $400.52. This decision cannot be appealed."

Nasdaq offered no explanation as to the source of the erroneous orders and did not respond to further queries.

Early Tuesday morning, Nasdaq reported an unspecified issue at one of its data centers. "NASDAQ is investigating an issue in our Mid-Atlantic data center affecting Ouch, Core drop, and Market Data feeds," the company said on its Web site. "Clients affected should fail over to our primary NYC data center."

Google declined to comment.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened. Another "erroneous transaction" on Nasdaq hammered Google's stock in late July 2006.