Glitches Mar BATS Debut

[brooklynite]

Source: WSJ

A series of glitches upended the first day of trading for alternative-trading platform BATS Global Markets Inc., BATS as its shares were halted following erroneous trades and technical snafus on its exchange affected trading in Apple Inc.

The alternative exchange saw its shares halted by the Nasdaq Stock Market for "clearly erroneous" trades less than one minute after it began trading as a public company. BATS's first trade was on its own BATS exchange and then began trading shortly afterward on both Nasdaq and BATS, plunging all the way to zero. A bid to restart trading of BATS shares in the afternoon was nixed.

At the same time, shares of Apple were halted for five minutes after erroneous trades were made on BATS's exchange. According to FactSet, orders placed through the BATS Global Markets came in well below where Apple had previously been trading.

The trouble started at 10:48 a.m. Eastern time, when BATS first put out an alert on its website that it was investigating trouble in all symbols between A and BF. At 10:57 a.m., a trade made on the BATS exchange in Apple sent that stock plunging to $542.80, FactSet data show, setting off a circuit breaker for that stock. At 11:14 a.m., BATS began trading and plunged before being halted.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304636404577299560502440118.html

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I've been researching this, and I still can't figure out what BATS actually does.

[PoliticAverse]

1. BATS is an electronic stock trading exchange.

http://www.batstrading.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BATS_Global_Markets

[brooklynite]

2. Yes, I read those...

...and "alternative trading platform" doesn't really tell me anything.

[Tushon]

3. Alternative as in "not NYX or NASDAQ"

It is just another stock exchange.

[PoliticAverse]

4. Basically they're computers that you send orders to to buy and sell stocks.

The computers hold the orders and automatically match them when possible.

So I can send an order to BATS to buy 100 shares of Apple at 600 dollars per share.
If someone else sends an order to sell Apple at or below 600 dollars per share the
BATS computers match the orders and report that a trade has been made.

They're just all-electronic stock exchanges - 'trading platform' in this instance just means 'stock exchange'.
All electronic exchanges are called 'ECNs' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_communication_network).
ECNs are alternatives to human exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange.