On your first day of work, you really should make a good impression.

This also holds true for the first day your shares are traded - on your IPO day.

BATS Global Market Inc. really embarrased itself. It is an exchange operator, making up about 12 percent of all U.S. stock trading. With that it's number three after the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. BATS stands for "Better Alternative Trading System".

Well, scratch the "better".

BATS in the past years of operation flattered companies by ballyhooing its "world-class customer support and technology." It wanted to help its own business, by listing new shares on its exchange that would be sure to garner attention: itself.

Well, that plan backfired.

A series of glitches hit BATS market debut on Thursday, which caused the company to withdraw its IPO altogether. This is an extremely rare step and a big embarrassment.

Especially because there's one more thing: BATS listing problems halted the trade of the world's largest and most valuable listed company: Appel Inc.

What happend?

On Thursday night BATS set the IPO price of its own stock at $16, the low end of what the company had originally aimed for. Shortly after starting to trade, BATS share price plunged to just pennies before the computers automatically halted the trading.

A few hours later - the computers still had a software bug - BATS admitted defeat and withdrew its public offering and said it had no plans to try again. All trades made that day would be cancelled.

If only the problems stopped there.

BATS didn't just halt all trading of its own shares, but its computers also suspended trading of all stocks whose names began with A through to BF.

Bad luck for Apple. Trading in Apple shares also temporarily halted, after its shares plunged 9% at one point. Oops.

BATS failed and an embarrasing IPO wasn´t just a blow for the exchange, but to a new business model for which it had high hopes.

In February, BATS (the David) offered free listings to companies whose shares traded a certain amount each day, hoping to draw IPOs away from (Goliath) Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange.

However this time the course of the story was different: the giant Goliath triumphed over the weak David. BATS became the laughing-stock of Wall Street.

"It was the biggest day of the life of the company, and their own stock melts down," Larry Tabb, CEO of Tabb Group, told the Associated Press. "This doesn't build confidence."

A spokesman BATS said that the company's systems have been "extremely reliable" in the past. "I'm not saying that atones for today, just that we've been considered the industry gold standard for the past several years."

Well, the gold really didn't shine last week.

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