New York Stock Exchange Malfunction Shuts Down Trading

08 Jul, 2015

The New York Stock Exchange halted trading late Wednesday morning because of technical trouble.

The outage came as traders had plenty of other things to worry about. Concerns about China’s plunging stock market and a logjam in talks between Greece and its creditors weighed on the mood. Major indexes were already falling before the shutdown, which occurred shortly after 11:30 a.m. Eastern time. NYSE resumed trading at 3:10 p.m.

The exchange, in a statement late Wednesday, attributed the malfunction to a “configuration issue” and not as the result of hackers. A NYSE spokeswoman would not provide further details.

The broader stock market stayed open as orders to buy and sell kept flowing to the Nasdaq and other exchanges around the country.

President Obama was briefed on the NYSE situation, according to Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman. Officials told the president there were no malicious actors involved.

By the end of the day, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 34.66 points, or 1.7 percent, to close at 2,046.68.

The Dow Jones industrial average dipped 261.49 points, or 1.5 percent, to 17,515.42 and the Nasdaq slid 87.70 points, or 1.8 percent, to 4,909.76.

U.S. markets have been dogged by technical problems over recent years as more trading is handled by computers. In May 2010, the Dow plunged hundreds of points in minutes in an incident that later became known as the “flash crash.” In March 2012, BATS Global Markets, a Kansas company that offers stock trading services, canceled its own IPO after several snafus.

 AP

Image Justin Lane EPA

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