S&P 500 e-minis were up 4.25 points, or 0.21 percent, with 227 297 contracts traded at 8:44 a.m. ET.

“A ideal storm of events has hit oil markets”, Morgan Stanley said. NYSE trading resumed at 3:10 p.m. ET.

Trading continued on Nasdaq and other exchanges.

The benchmark S&P 500 index posted 14 new 52-week highs and 48 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 46 new highs and 166 new lows.

Adding to the negative tone, a continuous slide in Chinese stocks weighed on an already ravaged global commodity sector, with prices of copper, coal, natural gas and iron ore falling towards their 2015 lows.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA) rose 0.53% to 17,776.91.

However, there is still optimism that some agreement can be reached between the country and its creditors.

The USA Department of Homeland Security said there were “no signs of malicious activity at this time” relating to the technical glitches at the NYSE and United Airlines, CNN said.

“What surprises me is how infrequently these major outages occur”, he said. “Eight percent of that market is driven by retail investors, and that’s who you have to convince”, Donisanu said. Angel sat on the board of exchange company Direct Edge before it was acquired by a larger rival previous year. In May 2010, the Dow plunged hundreds of points in minutes in an incident that later became known as the “flash crash”.

“The more resources authorities commit to propping up the stock market, the more they ratchet up the potential fall-out risks should the market continue to collapse”, said Andrew Wood, an analyst at BMI Research. South Korea’s Kospi was down 1.1 percent at 2,016.21. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index was off 25 points, or 1.2 per cent, to 2,056.

Two months later, a highly anticipated IPO of Facebook on the Nasdaq exchange was marred by a series of technical problems, rattling investors unsure if their orders went through. Horizon fell 68 cents, or 2 percent, to $33.86, while Depomed soared $7.98, or 39 percent, to $28.62.

Stocks fell 6 percent in Shanghai despite the Chinese government’s latest efforts to shore up the market.

Last month, MSCI said Chinese A-shares, those traded on the volatile Shanghai exchange, could become part of its emerging markets index if the Chinese government met conditions. “My clients are starting to get more concerned about China than they were about Greece”.

Greece formally requested a three-year bailout from the eurozone rescue fund Wednesday and pledged to start implementing some of the reforms demanded by its creditors.

That raised concerns Greek banks could soon run out of cash and that Greece’s problems will spread to other southern European countries. White thinks that once quarterly earnings reports start to roll in over the coming weeks, investors will turn their focus to the US and its improving economy. Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 3.1 percent to 19,737.64 as the yen strengthened on safe haven buying. Britain’s FTSE 100 added 0.4 percent to 6,456.49.

KEEPING SCORE: China’s Shanghai Composite Index tumbled 5.5 percent to 3,521.20 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dived 5.1 percent to 23,693.95.

Shares in Container Store Group Inc.(TCS) jumped 2.5% after the storage company said late Tuesday that its first-quarter loss was less than expected.

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The price of oil stabilized a day after plunging 8 per cent. US benchmark crude edged down 21 cents to $52.31 a barrel.