Erroneous trades in Kraft’s shares sent their price up as much as 29 percent in the first minute of trading Wednesday -- the latest in a series of trading hiccups that have rattled investors’ confidence in the markets.
The Nasdaq stock market said it would cancel some trades in the stock and is looking into “potentially erroneous transactions” that led to the spike in Kraft’s stock price.
The problem comes just days after Kraft Foods and former Kraft snack business Mondelez International began trading as two separate public companies.
Kraft Foods said in March it planned to spin off its global snack business. That company, called Mondelez International, will be home to global brands such as Oreo and Nabisco.
The North American grocery business will keep the Kraft name and include brands such as Velveeta and Miracle Whip.
The markets have been roiled by a number of trading glitches lately, the most high-profile of which was an unexpected delay in the trading debut of Facebook’s stock on the Nasdaq market in May.
The first-day trading glitch led to complaints of slow order confirmations and too many shares offered at too high a price.
Subsequent lawsuits alleged the Nasdaq botched the offering and that deal underwriters Morgan Stanley and others failed to share lowered earnings forecasts with retail investors before the IPO.
In another high-profile trading error, Knight Capital, the biggest handler of stock orders to U.S. brokerages, saw a trading glitch that prompted confusion in the stock markets, cost the firm $440 million and caused unusually high volatility in the markets.
Scott Nations, of trading company NationsShares, told CNBC Wednesday the unusual trading in Kraft shares is setting up a generation of people who don't trust the market:
Click here to check on shares of Kraft.
For a complete list of the latest market movers click here.
Reuters contributed to this report.
