Google Incorporated dropped by as much as 3.1 per cent and then reversed most of the tumble within a second in a series of transactions that spurred concern the stock was hit by a computerised-trading error.
Google slid as low as $775 in two trades totaling 210 shares at 9:37 a.m. New York time and then recovered most of the loss within the same second, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Bloomberg News reported on Monday, that the stock had opened the session with a gain, climbing to as high as $803.96. It traded down by 0.1 per cent on the day at $798.87 as of 2:20 p.m. in New York.
The decline was not large enough to trigger a trading circuit breaker that would pause Google shares. That would require a drop of 10 per cent in five minutes.
The shares are not yet part of a pilot program to test a "limit-up/limit-down" system that will stop trades from occurring at a specified percentage above or below a stock's rolling five-minute average price.
"I don't think the seller did this on purpose, it was most likely an error," Mike Shea, a managing partner at New York- based brokerage firm Direct Access Partners LLC, said in an e-mail.
"The problem with errors in high-priced stocks is that you rarely see the market center bust trades because you rarely see the stock trade up or down the 10 per cent threshold usually required for review and relief."
