The NYSE confirmed that the issue was the result of a technical problem and was not caused by a cyber breach. That compares with a drop of 1.1 percent for Standard and Poor’s 500 index.
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Investors already were unnerved by plunging Chinese stocks and a jarring Greek debt crisis. And then by 11:32 a.m., traders were still noticing “unusual system behavior” leading the NYSE to suspend trading on the floor of the stock exchange. He said some Internet ports to the NYSE either would not connect or would suddenly disconnect, a problem that continued until officials decided to halt operations.
The USA Department of Homeland Security said there were no signs that the problems at NYSE and United Airlines stemmed from “malicious activity”.
Today, the New York Stock Exchange only handles 14 percent of trades. But trading went on.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday said that it was closely monitoring the situation at the exchange.
Thomas Farley, president of the NYSE Group, told CNBC the technical issue appeared to be a “configuration problem” but he said it was “premature” to discuss the specific cause.
Summer is usually a quieter time for stock trading. Concerns about China’s plunging stock market and a logjam in talks between Greece and its creditors weighed on the mood.
Now, stocks can be traded at some 60 exchanges and trading venues.
Shares of Intercontinental Exchange, the NYSE’s parent, fell 2.2 percent.
The breakdown was the worst US exchange outage since Nasdaq OMX Group Inc.’s August 2013 software malfunction that froze trading for thousands of companies for hours.
The Dow ended up 33 points on the day, but that represents a disappointment considering it was almost 250 points in the green shortly after the opening bell. Two months later, a highly anticipated IPO of Facebook on the Nasdaq exchange was marred by a series of technical problems.
The NYSE updated the gateways with the correct version of the software. Itmade the statement on its official Twitter account. A less dramatic stumble put most of NASDAQ out of action for three hours in 2013. Any disruption caused by the failure of technical expertise not only tarnishes the reputation of securities exchanges, but also raise questions about their credibility among regulatory bodies, governments, stock market participants and others, directly or indirectly, associated with trading.
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“All the rest are on other exchanges”.
