If today's ridiculous move is the kind that no retail investors would chase, it is precisely what HFTs around the globe love: nothing but momentum, momentum, momentum. In fact, HFTs are trading so much, they are literally overheating!
According to a notice mailed out moments ago by CenturyLink, its NJ2 data center has just experienced a "critical" HVAC data failure.
Incident Notification
All times listed are in Central time zone.
Time and Date of Event: 10:08, 08/27/2015
Location: ZZNJ2
Event Description: The south side of the NJ2 data center is having a critical HVAC event. Clients are being requested to begin a safe shut down of devices immediately.
Current Status: Steps are being taken by the data center to safely shut down client devices by request due to temperature concerns on the South side of the building.
Next Status Update: 30 mins
* * *
Here are some specifics on the NJ2 data center [4]:
Real Estate Summary
Located near Newark International Airport; 15 minutes from Manhattan, NY
Four story building
Total building interior (sf) = 223,022
Raised floor (inches) = 12
Electrical Summary
PSE&G provides power feeds
Power density minimum (W/sf) = 150
Generator configuration = N + 1
Total Power Capacity = 16 MW
Minimum two fuel replenishing companies
Mechanical Summary
Cooling system configuration = N + 1
CenturyLink manages temperature and humidity to strict ASHRAE standard
Fire Detection and Suppression Summary
VESDA provides early warning detection
FM200
How do we know HFTs are involved? Moments ago, BATS issued an advisory [5]:
BATS Weehawken Network Point-of-Presence (NJ2 PoP) Advisory
August 27, 2015 12:26:21
Please be advised that the CenturyLink Weehawken, NJ data center (NJ2) maintaining a BATS PoP has reported a critical HVAC issue. Per CenturyLink, the cage will not have cooling over the next couple of hours at a minimum, so BATS would like to advise Members utilizing the BATS NJ2 PoP of potential impact that could result from overheating of equipment. BATS has shutdown all non-critical infrastructure at the NJ2 PoP at this time and will continue to monitor the situation. There is currently no customer impact but BATS will advise with material updates to this situation in NJ2 and if customer impact is expected.
IMPORTANT: There is no customer impact at this time in NY5 or NY4 (Secaucus) and all BATS exchange platforms are operating normally.
And while BATS may be safely offline and trading out of a redundant location, one wonders just how many other "wealth effect" mission critical HFTs clients of CenturyLink are about to go offline, and whether the entire market is about to go down with them?
[4]
This is a developing story: more as we see it.
