Nasdaq steps in after glitch slams Google stock

At first all was right with the tech world. Stocks were swimming in a sea of green, recovering from a bloody red Monday. Google was trading up slightly most of the day, staying in a fairly narrow but very respectable range.

Then, suddenly, in the final few minutes the stock began to soar and plummet like an out-of-control yo-yo. Google Finance lists the day's high as $488.43 and the low as $25.80.

We knew we were in the middle of a financial meltdown, but come on.

Nasdaq's surveillance arm got on the case at, ahem, Internet speed. It turns out "erroneous orders" that were routed to Nasdaq from another market center had triggered the plunge, a Nasdaq spokesman said in an e-mail. He did not say which exchange was responsible.

Nasdaq canceled all trades at or above $425.29 and trades at or below $400.52 that were executed between 3:57 p.m. and 4:02 p.m. EDT. Nasdaq set the closing price at $400.52, which was a 5% gain after Monday's 12% loss. The decision cannot be appealed, he said.

Wiping out trades is not a happy business at Nasdaq. It's both rare and embarrassing. But at least fund managers' hearts are no longer in their throats.

Google's closing price is far below the company's all-time high. Today investors will take it and like it.

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Jessica Guynn

EA pulls plug on tardy Tiberium

Electronic Arts Inc. on Tuesday canceled Tiberium, a spinoff of its popular Command & Conquer franchise of shooter games, and said it would lay off an unspecified number of employees at its Playa Vista office.

"The game was not on track to meet the high quality standards set by the team and by the EA Games label," EA spokeswoman Miriam Sughayer said.

Sughayer said the Redwood City, Calif., developer would strive to place most of the affected workers into other EA projects.

"This is not about cutting back financially," she said. "We still have tons of positions open, and we're hiring throughout the company."

Earlier this year, EA pushed back the launch of Tiberium to 2009. After spending more than a year developing the game, EA said it decided to cut its losses rather than put out a mediocre product that could mar the company's recent efforts to revitalize its reputation for producing high-quality titles in an increasingly crowded market for video games.

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Alex Pham

Netscape founder joins EBay board

Call it a big win for online auctioneer EBay Inc. The San Jose company announced Tuesday that Netscape Communications co-founder and all-around golden geek Marc Andreessen had joined its board of directors.

In a statement, EBay Chief Executive John Donahoe said Andreessen's insights would be invaluable as the company seeks to "drive further innovation on our platform, invest in growth opportunities and develop technology that will further benefit our customers, build powerful communities and enhance e-commerce."

Translation: EBay is counting on Andreessen's mojo to help outmaneuver Amazon and Google, which have been siphoning some of its merchants. Things are bound to get tougher with the economy preparing for what Andreessen last year predicted would be a financial "nuclear winter."

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Jessica Guynn