You might have picked up in the Morning Spice headlines that the Nasdaq stock exchange said it “owe[d] the industry an apology”. It’s gone a little further now, and says it will set aside $40 million to reimburse investors that suffered losses due to technical problems on Facebook’s first day of trading.

Computer “glitches” on Facebook’s first day of trading on May 18 kept some investors from buying or selling shares, and delayed the initial trades in the stock by half an hour.

Investors were livid, though they’re probably more livid now that the stock is only worth about $25 a share, with a reported realistic value of between $14 and $16.

Some investors said they didn’t know whether their orders were processed, and others said they were left holding shares they did not want.

Nasdaq says it will reimburse investors who tried to sell shares at $42 or less, but either couldn’t sell, or sold at a lower price than they intended.

It will also reimburse investors for share price purchases at $42 that weren’t immediately confirmed, after the stock initially priced at $38.

Nasdaq says the problems have been fixed, and it’s hired IBM to review its operating systems.

However, not everyone is pleased with the reimbursement: Nasdaq’s chief competitor, the New York Stock Exchange, has accused Nasdaq of giving itself an unfair advantage, saying the move gives investors an incentive to move more of their trading to Nasdaq, if such hitches happened again.

The NYSE said in a statement:

This is tantamount to forcing the industry to subsidise Nasdaq’s mis-step and would establish a harmful precedent that could have far-reaching implications for the markets, investors and the public interest.

Nasdaq’s proposal still has to be approved by the watchdog, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the NYSE said it would “strongly press our views” against the Nasdaq proposal.

FINRA, the financial industry’s self-regulatory group, would review investors’ claims for compensation.

[Sources: Fin24, BBC]