Finra looking into Facebook trading snafu

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. is starting the process of examining last Friday's massive glitch at the Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. that halted the trading of the highly anticipated initial public offering of Facebook Inc. “Nasdaq reached out to us to see if we could assist them” to look at data and make recommendations about how to handle Facebook trades that were made from 11:11 to 11:30 last Friday, said Thomas Gira, executive vice president, Finra Market Regulation. At that time, a series of orders were not executed in the way that the customers wanted, he said. Mr. Gira was speaking in Washington Tuesday afternoon on a panel at Finra's annual meeting. “We're starting this process,” he said. The deadline to submit claims was noon Monday, he said. Finra will “now analyze what happened and make recommendations to Nasdaq,” which will make the ultimate decision over such trading claims, he said. Nasdaq reached out to Finra for an “independent review,” Mr. Gira said. “We may need to go back to firms and ask for more information.” Finra is the successor to the NASD. In 2006, NASD separated from Nasdaq when it sold its ownership stake in the exchange.