At last glance, the iconic electronic stock market known as the Nasdaq remains dead as a doornail. The exchange has attributed the outage to an unexplained “issue.” So at this point, we’re forced to ask the unthinkable: Is it squirrels again?
The rodents have twice disrupted Nasdaq trading. In December 1987, an energetic squirrel ate into a crucial cable that cut power in Trumbull, Connecticut, where Nasdaq’s main trading computers were located at the time.
Hah! A once-in-a-lifetime outlier, right? Wrong. Bushy-tailed nut-hoarders brought the Nasdaq to a standstill for 34 minutes in 1994, when a squirrel chomped through yet another cable.
We’re not saying squirrels are to blame today. We’re just saying it’s too early to rule them out.
Update (3:40 p.m.): The Nasdaq has resumed trading, but the cause of the trading freeze remains a mystery for now.