In a bizarre turn of events, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) found itself in the throes of a technical hiccup on Monday that brought even titans like Berkshire Hathaway to their knees. With stocks behaving more erratically than an unskilled line dancer at a country music festival, the situation has sparked equal parts confusion and amusement across financial circles.

Berkshire Hathaway and dozens of other stocks were halted due to a technical issue that NYSE is currently investigating. The problem appears to be related to the 'limit up-limit down bands,' a mechanism designed to prevent stock prices from swinging wildly. Ironically, on this peculiar Monday, those very bands seemed about as effective as a paper umbrella in a hurricane.

In the eye of this digital storm was none other than Berkshire Hathaway’s Class A stock, which astonishingly showed a dramatic price drop to $185.10, representing a loss of 99.97%. For a company whose shares were trading above $620,000 a pop, this was akin to Warren Buffett suddenly repricing diamonds as cubic zirconias.

The NYSE trading data had no qualms flaunting this egregious error, with incorrect data showing Berkshire Hathaway's shares down by 99%. This made financial history for all the wrong reasons, momentarily turning one of the wealthiest companies into a ghost of its former self.

Shares of other heavy hitters like Chipotle, AMC Entertainment, and GameStop were also caught in the crossfire. It was as if the NYSE had mistaken itself for a Las Vegas casino, randomly doling out money and losses with an errant spin of the wheel.

In total, an estimated 50 stocks were affected by the technical issue, eerily trading outside their prescribed limit up-limit down bands. The band itself seemed to have gone on a hiatus, probably somewhere sipping a margarita, leaving stock prices to meander unrestrained.

According to Joe Saluzzi, co-founder of Themis Trading, the technical issues don’t appear to be impacting the broader market. That's good news for most investors, who can at least maintain their sense of equilibrium, if not their stock portfolio.

While the NYSE is cobbling together the answers to what caused this digital dystopia, one can't help but chuckle at the idea of Berkshire Hathaway having to enter the stock market’s equivalent of the witness protection program. After all, even the invincible Warren Buffett isn't immune to the occasional slapstick twist of fate that makes the financial world such a theater of the absurd.