Just when you thought Healthcare.gov was the worst designed system and that nothing could match government incompetence, here comes Nasdaq, and adding insult to repeated shutdown injury from over the past several months, has just announced it will not unhalt the Options Market before the weekend, and will cancel all open orders. As for the scapegoat: "a significant increase in order entries." In other words, a blast of HFT quote churn again - just like the flash crash.
From Nasdaq:
On Friday, November 1st at 10:36:57 a.m. ET, NASDAQ OMX halted trading on the NASDAQ Options Market (NOM), one of the exchange group’s three U.S. options markets.
A significant increase in order entries inhibited the system’s ability to accept orders and disseminate quotes on a subset of symbols, which resulted in the NOM halt.
As equities options trading continues on eleven other venues, including NASDAQ OMX PHLX and BX Options, NASDAQ OMX has determined it is in the best interest of market participants and investors to cancel all open orders on the NOM book at 10:36:57 a.m. ET, and to continue the market halt through the close. Equities trading has not been impacted.