Berkshire’s stock rose so high that the exchange computers’ computers were ‘overloaded’, caused by Warren Buffett

Currently, Berkshire Hathaway Grade A shares are trading at over $ 421,000 and the market is very optimistic about the group. This trend is also a matter of concern. The price of this stock is rising too high and close to reaching the maximum level that trading computers can handle.

On Tuesday, Nasdaq Inc. Berkshire’s Grade A shares were suspended on several popular data sources. These resources provide real-time price updates for a number of online brokerage and financial websites.

Nasdaq computers can only charge so high due to the digital format they use to display the prices. The highest number the machines can handle is 429,496,7295 USD. However, the Nasdaq is currently rushing to complete an upgrade later this month to fix the issue.

Not only Nasdaq, the other operating the exchange is IEX Group Inc. also encountered a similar situation. In March, IEX said it would stop accepting investor orders for Berkshire’s Grade A shares, ” due to price limits in the trading system “.

According to the Wall Street Journal, this is the “stock market” version of the Y2K event (the 2000 computer crash). However, this issue is becoming more urgent as Berkshire’s shares have risen more than 20% this year.

Specifically, Nasdaq and several other exchange operators record stock prices in 32-bit, 1 or 0-bit computer format. The largest number that can display is 2 ³² -1, which equates to 4,294,967,295. The share price is usually calculated to 4 decimal places, so the highest price will be $ 429,496,7295.

Berkshire’s grade A share price ended May 4.

So far, none of the stocks have come close to the “heavenly” price of Berkshire Class A shares. Therefore, it is understandable why the engineers of Nasdaq and IEX systems have chosen numeric (4-bit unsigned integer) The use of a compact format will take up less memory, make the software more efficient and is a priority for electronic stocks.

On the US stock market, shares currently trading at the second highest level after Berkshire is home construction company NVR Inc., $ 5,100 / share.

The “root” of this problem is that Warren Buffett has not agreed to a Grade A stock split for decades. According to Fortune, the billionaire gave friends cards and said: ” Hope you live long until Berkshire stock splits .” When shareholders urged the issue, he said a lower price would cause short-term investors to invest in the stock.

At his 1995 annual meeting, he said: ” I know that if there is something for $ 500 there will be a lot of buyers. They are people who don’t have a clear idea of ​​what they’re doing . ”

Since then, Berkshire has issued Grade B shares at a lower price, giving more investors access to the corporation. Currently, many brokers are offering fractional trading, which allows customers to buy Berkshire stock for a few dollars. However, Warren Buffett is still determined not to split A shares.

On Monday, Nasdaq warned customers that they would complete the data upgrade on May 17, allowing the price to be greater than $ 429,496,7295. However, up to that point, they will temporarily stop announcing the price of any shares that exceed the 98% threshold. This happened on Tuesday, when Berkshire’s Grade A shares closed at $ 421,420.00.

Nasdaq data feeds are used by brokerage platforms such as Robinhood and Webull, and several other online financial information providers. Most likely, the incident would have caused disruption to investors who watched Berkshire Grade A shares, if the brokers did not have backup data available.

Refer to the Wall Street Journal