Brandjack News

By Quentin Langley

Yesterday, the New York Stock Exchange was down for four hours due to "technical difficulties". There's been no further explanation, and initial reports did not even include that. Conspiracy theorists have been speculating, of course, with some talk of cyber attacks, though it is known that NYSE has also been disconnecting some legacy systems, so a botched systems upgrade seems possible. NYSE is talking about a "configuration issue". The fact that the Wall Street Journal homepage was down for about an hour during the NYSE outage fuelled the conspiracy charges.

When you face a crisis, full disclosure is not just the ethically right thing, it is the sensible thing. Get ahead of the story. Tell your own story, don't wait for others to tell it for you. Tell the truth. Tell it all. Tell it now. 

That NYSE is still vague on the details almost 24 hours later is bad policy and will undermine future trust.

It is true, of course, that in a crisis it can take time to get to the bottom of things. It is perfectly possible that NYSE is still investigating the causes. But unless you want to look like Tony Haywood and his "I don't knows", there is a time-honoured approach to this, and it isn't silence. The right course is to make it clear you are investigating and will publish your findings when you have them.

It isn't hard, NYSE. Just get ahead of the story by being transparent. You are a market. Transparency is your product. Time you started using it.