If You Thought the World Was Spinning Awful Fast Last Friday, That's Because It Was

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Just popping my head up above the fury of today's market bashing to offer a little perspective of the techie kind.  A colleague has noted we hit several records for electronic message traffic last Friday, 5 August 2011. I pass these along not to pat ourselves on the back but to let you know that if you felt the world was spinning awful fast on Friday, that's because it was.

• NYSE had a record 390 million orders, eclipsing the record of 360 million on 7 May 2010.
• Total messages handled by our Display Book system was 2.2 billion,  which is 34% more than the 1.6 billion we handled on 7 May 2010, the previous record day.
• There were a record 1.1 billion consolidated quotes for NYSE-listed issues, which was 88% more than we handled on 6 May 2010, the previous record day.
• We also hit a record 30-second peak for our Super Display Book of 121,257 messages per second.  Those messages include orders, executions, cancellations, etc.

I haven't heard anything yet about today's message traffic, but will pass along if I get something. I know that system usage is not at the top of most people's worry list on a day like today, but I also know the ops people out there sweat this stuff, and hey, don't shoot me, I'm just the color guy.