So it's a nice story but harmless - there are a lot of legitimately scary financial stories out there anyway.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the sky is falling (unlike the news agencies reporting on leap seconds), I'm just speculating as to why there was a problem.
What ever the problem was, they fixed it and everything is fine. No harm no foul.
It's pure speculation on my part but my guess would be leap year manifestation.
The 30th of June roles over, the NYSE halts trading for 61 minutes, they resume.
Later they start noticing trade data is being reported wrong, trade times being logged are out by half a second, etc.
They realize the problem and spend several days working on a patch.
They now have a patch, but they need to bring the systems offline to deploy and correct for bad data.
They bring the market offline, apply patch, bring it up again.
Problem solved.
But who knows, maybe it was the Chinese trying to hide their problems by making everyone look at the NYSE
