Financial software expert Lev Lesokhin, who works for analysis and measurement software provider CAST Software, believes that stock exchanges are playing Russian roulette with their trading systems.
"We're loading up a bunch of bullets or code, and we click and hope that we don't get one in the head," he told Computing.
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Nasdaq's technical malfunction this week follows several other high-profile market blunders in the past year that have potentially cost shareholders and listed companies millions of dollars.
In the same week that Goldman Sachs caused unintended stock-option orders to flood US stock exchanges, Nasdaq has seemingly failed to learn from the trading glitch that occurred during the initial public offering (IPO) and secondary market trading of Facebook shares.
One of the key problems for stock exchanges, said Lesokhin, is that there isn't enough emphasis placed on testing the software and ensuring that it is robust and well engineered.
"We have been working with some of the exchanges and some of the big banks, such as Morgan Stanley and Barclays Capital, and we see varying degrees of sophistication [in their IT].
"But the fundamental problem in some of these organisations is that they've got a trading floor with market traders who just want the systems to get things done as quickly as possible, and they don't care as much about whether they are pushing too fast, or if they are getting things into the system too quickly," he said.
"It's very difficult for an IT organisation to make sure their software is well engineered and not a big pile of spaghetti code; it's hard for them to test and hard for them to ensure it stays robust," he added.
Lesokhin said that the main problem is that there isn't anyone in the business management or IT management side who is responsible for knowing what the inherent software risk is in every release.
"If you ask any CIO at any market maker or exchange, they can't tell you if a software release is more or less risky than the last, they don't know," he said.
"Not only that, but there isn't one person who IS responsible for measuring the risk of the software systems - it's left up to chance," he added.
But with Nasdaq having to pay a $10m penalty for its Facebook gaffe last year, and with so much riding on the software to work correctly, would anyone want responsibility for such a high-pressure role?
"That's the problem, "Lesokhin said. "The type of person that usually takes on that kind of role would be a visionary and clearly get [why it is necessary], or want to do the right thing for the organisation.
"There are a lot of people like that but these people tend not to be the most politically savvy, so we've seen a high turnover of these guys," he said.
