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Nasdaq had to adjust core code after Berkshire Hathaway share price high
The share price of investment group Berkshire Hathaway rose so high recently that it briefly broke the code of the Nasdaq stock exchange.
As reported by The Register, Nasdaq uses 32-bit unsigned integers as opposed to 64-bit unsigned integers for stocks listed on its exchange.
Normally this wouldn't be a problem but because the investment group, run by legendary investor Warren Buffett, is so highly valued, its BRK.A stock exceeded the maximum value of a 32-bit variable.
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This is 4,294,967,295 in decimal - and at the time of writing, one share of BRK.A stock is currently valued at over $437k per share. The stock is also listed on the New York Stock Exchange but unlike Nasdaq, it was unaffected by the bug.
Breaking Nasdaq's code
Following BRK.A's recent increase in price, the Nasdaq exchange stopped transmitting information about the stock on both its website and in the feeds of brokers and other financial organizations. Instead, the website for the stock displayed a message which read “Data is currently not available”.
As Nasdaq doesn't store stock prices using a floating-point number format likely due to the fact that they can be approximate, the exchange multiply quotes by 10,000 and stores them as 32-bit unsigned integers. In this case the value 123,456 represents a stock price of $12.3456.
BRK.A's current price of $437,131.0000 would be stored as 4,371,310,000 and this exceeds the maximum of 4,294,967,295 and for this reason, it would overflow to a value far lower than the actual stock price as it would wrap around from the maximum to zero and then go past zero to 43,713,100 or $4,713.100.
If Nasdaq had broadcast this price online, there would be utter pandemonium as investors would think the stock lost over $400k in value while consumers would believe that they could pick up shares of one of the world's highest valued stocks at a bargain price.
According to Nasdaq, the exchange has said that the issue will be fixed by May 17.
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Date
07 May 2021Sources
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Google says e-commerce hasn't destroyed bricks-and-mortar for good
Read MoreRetail has been forced to go all-in on digital during the pandemic, but bricks-and-mortar stores still have an important role to play. As a matter of fact, as stores slowly begin to reopen, people are returning to in-store shopping as an omnichannel approach takes precedence.
That's according to a new report from Google's parent company Alphabet. In its recent Q3 2021 financial results, Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler said ad sales in the digital sector experienced “explosive growth” over the last 20-something months.
“But, as the world begins to reopen, shoppers are returning to stores," he said. "Brick-and-mortar isn't dead. Instead, omnichannel is in full force."
Retail driving omnichannel growth
One of the key pieces of evidence supporting this claim can be found in Google search queries. Compared to last year, queries “stores open now near me” are up four times.
"As a result, we've seen more advertisers include in-store sales alongside e-commerce goals to drive omnichannel growth," Schindler added. "Adoption has nearly doubled over the past year."
During the earnings call, Schindler took Kohl’s as an example. A fortnight after it was forced to close more than 1,000 of its stores, the retailer launched curbside pickup. Soon after that, it tested local inventory ads and went “all in” on omnichannel bidding across its paid search portfolio. As a result, Q2 net sales went up by almost a third (31%) year-on-year.
Overall, Alphabet’s Q3 results beat analyst estimates, as its revenues went up 41%. Most of the revenue (around $59.88 billion) came from Google Services and its advertising business, as ad revenues hit $53.13 billion, up from $37.01 billion a year ago.
Most of the revenue was contributed by retail, followed by media and entertainment, finance, and travel.
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