You may not be able to get your coffee maker to make coffee, but when the new year rolls around in nine months it appears you'll at least be able to sell your stock in the company that makes the coffee maker.
Wall Street's largest test yet of the readiness of its computerized trading systems to meet the millennium went off without a hitch this weekend. More than 400 firms participated in the weekend test, a simulation using the actual systems that govern trading to conduct hypothetical trades of nine different products, including stocks, mutual funds and government-backed securities. Testing will continue until 25 April. A spokesman for the Securities Industry Association said Monday it appears that all systems are functioning.
"We didn't have any problems that would have stopped the presses, so to speak," said SIA vice president and Y2K project manager John Panchery. "We're past day one, but we've got a long way to go."
Wall Street is concerned about its computers' ability to process information containing dates beyond 1 January 2000. If the machines can't recognize the new year, the theory goes, brokerages and stock exchanges would come screeching to a halt, triggering financial chaos around the globe.
Tests last July showed that the exchanges themselves were ready for the millennium. But the weekend trial was the first time that outside firms, including banks and brokerages, could test their own systems' ability to use the markets.
Because it takes three days to settle a typical market transaction, the calendar Saturday was changed to 3 January 2000, processing trades made on 29 December 1999. A total of 850 different test conditions were processed. With nearly 100 percent of the participating firms reporting, Panchery said there were no major glitches, other than a lost file here and there.
The testing itself is not without risk, since it is the actual system that is being forced to jump back and forth in time. "What's unique about this test is that we are testing the entire trading cycle," Panchery said. "There is a very real risk to the system in doing this test, but we felt the risk was worth it to find out if we were going to be ready."
