UPDATE: Finally. After being halted for more than three and a half hours, trading on the NYSE and NYSE MKT resumed shortly after 3 p.m. on Wednesday.
It was a few minutes after the time period NYSE President Tom Farley laid out about an hour before, when he told CNBC that the exchange would re-open between 2:45 and 3 p.m.
There’s still no official word from the NYSE about the specific cause of the issue.
Previously, a cryptic tweet late Tuesday night from a Twitter account associated with the hacker collective Anonymous had raised eyebrows in light of today’s NYSE trading halt:
Wonder if tomorrow is going to be bad for Wall Street…. we can only hope.
— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) July 8, 2015
However, Anonymous does not appear to be involved, if a report earlier today from Fortune is to be believed:
“Eric Scott Hunsader, an expert in Wall Street trading systems who heads market data firm Nanex, said that it appears that a faulty system upgrade brought trading on the exchange to a halt. The NYSE has reportedly also told floor traders the exchange had to suspend trading due to an error with a systems upgrade that was rolled out before the market opened on Wednesday.”
Original story: Trading on the New York Stock Exchange has been temporarily halted for as-yet-unknown reasons. Any securities listed on the NYSE are not currently able to be traded.
According to an 11:51 a.m. update on the NYSE website:
“NYSE/NYSE MKT has temporarily suspended trading in all symbols. All open orders will be cancelled. Additional information will follow as soon as possible. Customers with questions may contact the NYSE Trading Services Desk at 1-212-896-2830.”
The site goes on to note that not all of its trading platforms are affected. At 12:01 p.m.:
“NYSE Arca and NYSE Amex/Arca Options are unaffected by this issue and continue normal operations at this time”
The NYSE also reported the outage on Twitter:
(1 of 2) We’re experiencing a technical issue that we’re working to resolve as quickly as possible.
— NYSE (@NYSE) July 8, 2015
(2 of 2) We’re doing our utmost to produce a swift resolution & will be providing further updates as soon as we can. — NYSE (@NYSE) July 8, 2015
(1 of 3) The issue we are experiencing is an internal technical issue and is not the result of a cyber breach.
— NYSE (@NYSE) July 8, 2015
(2 of 3) We chose to suspend trading on NYSE to avoid problems arising from our technical issue. — NYSE (@NYSE) July 8, 2015
(3 of 3) NYSE-listed securities continue to trade unaffected on other market centers.
— NYSE (@NYSE) July 8, 2015
Notably, the Nasdaq is currently operating normally, and NYSE securities are still tradable through that exchange.
As of 1:21 p.m. there was “no timetable” for reopening NYSE trading, according to Courtney Crawford of FOX Business.
.@NYSE tells Industry Group it has NO timetable for opening for maket trading again — Source #NYSE #tradinghalted
— Courtney Crawford (@CourtCrawfFBN) July 8, 2015
President Obama has reportedly been briefed on the NYSE trading halt, according to MarketWatch.
Trader Reactions
Charles Sizemore, CFA, is chief investment officer at Sizemore Capital Management. He offered his take on the NYSE trading halt:
“I was actually placing trades when it happened, and they went through with absutely no problems on the Nasdaq and BATS. This goes to show how little the NYSE really matters today. Volume has been moving off the exchange for years, and it’s to the point now that the average investor would have never noticed the outage unless they happened to be in front of their TV.”
Note: Check back later, as this story will be updated with additional details.
