Wall Street trading ceased for more than three and a half hoursStoppage coincides with glitch at United Airlines and sharp global market fallsRead the latest report, the social media reaction ... and the dystopian aftermath 4.25pm ET No matter how bad a day today was for the tech developers at the NYSE, traders in China had a worse day as their stock market continued its three-week nosedive. They’ve also had a bit of fun at New York’s expense.Buzzfeed has collected and translated some of the better quips: 4.06pm ET The bells sound and the traders clap: it’s closing time on Wall Street after a three and a half hour outage blamed on technical problems.Although the NYSE was closed for half the day, trading continued through other venues, and the day of decline continued as concerns about the Chinese market and Greek debt influenced the market. 3.59pm ET Need more dystopia in your day of Wall Street semi-shutdowns? Molly Crabapple has your apocalyptic vision over at Comment is Free.Outside, I take in the scene: street preachers denouncing Gnosticism, a lone banker trying to garrote himself with ticket tape, and the Bull – that gold, beautiful bull – running through the streets like Zeus. I chase after it for a quote, but, like the dubious financial transactions powered by super-compressors, it is too quick.Smoke. Weeping. Screams. 3.44pm ET Four hours later and less than half an hour before closing time, the New York Stock Exchange announces that it’s back to business as usual.BREAKING: NYSE says "all systems are functioning normally" after trading resumed after 3+ hour trading halt » http://t.co/jvkuQmTVYV 3.33pm ET Market outages are neither uncommon nor much of a problem for investors, according to the Wall Street Journal, which has published a story about closures not long after the newspaper’s own site went down on Wednesday.No exchange has exclusive rights to trade any stock or exchange-traded fund, except during the opening and closing of trading. Apart from those brief periods, trading takes place at any of a dozen exchanges and more than 40 private trading venues, known as dark pools.Outages could hurt traders and investors if they have orders sitting on the order book of an exchange that has a problem. So if an institution has an offer at an exchange to buy 1,000 shares of Apple Inc at a certain price, and the market stops trading, it can cause uncertainty. Many firms use those final prices to mark the value of their portfolios and set risk parameters. Without those closing prices, they might be forced to use less-accurate prices, and that could affect other trading decisions.There is some precedent for resolving problems with the closing auctions. In November 2012, technical issues forced the NYSE to find an alternative when it couldn’t hold closing auctions for 216 stocks, according to a note put out by Credit Suisse trading researchers Wednesday afternoon. In that case, the NYSE determined a closing price by monitoring transactions at other venues. 3.17pm ET As the machines once again match bids and quotes, the stock exchange tweets its official blessing upon the markets. There’s no fanfare on the floor – just numbers gradually starting to change again on monitors and a little more activity among the traders.Trading on NYSE and NYSE MKT has resumed 3.11pm ET The New York Stock Exchange has returned to business after more than three and a half hours of an unexpected closure, which officials blamed on technical problems.The exchange closed at 11.32am ET and re-opened just under an hour before the close of markets at 4pm ET. 3.09pm ET “It was a mess from the open,” a broker has told Reuters, which runs down what happened this morning and the importance of closing time on Wall Street.Some of the internet ports to the NYSE would not connect, or would unexpectedly disconnect, and this was happening from before market opened until the halt, the broker said.The exchange does a lot of its business at the close of trading, and if it’s still down then, the problems could increase. 3.01pm ET “They don’t need human beings,” an options trader opines on the tech woes of Wall Street, in video shot by my colleague Jana Kasperkevic. 2.56pm ET Officials at the NYSE have just announced that they have a plan, CNBC reports.Officials have said they’re going to try to open the American Stock Exchange at 3.05pm ET and the New York Stock Exchange at 3.10pm ET, leaving just under an hour of trading if the gates re-open without a hitch. 2.47pm ET Does the automation of the stock market mean many more days of glitches, breaks and malfunctions interrupting the rivers of cash moving around the world? At least one trader foresees problems in the rise of the machines – but says that doesn’t mean the markets need people per se. My colleague Jana Kasperkevic (@kasperka) reports from outside the NYSE. Hours into the unexpected break in trading, an options trader who gave his name as Chris stepped outside to puff away on his e-cigarette, and eventually relented to questions about the hours-long break in trading.“We need better technology. I mean, this hasn’t happened ever on the New York Stock exchange, for what they say,” he said. “I’m in options. I am not on the equity floor. I have never seen this happen on the New York Stock exchange ever, where all symbols halt at the same time. 2.35pm ET Fortune Magazine has also postulated that a problem in a software update is what brought the NYSE to its knees – or at least froze it in place, since stocks are trading in other venues. (via @nicflatow).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.If Fortune is right that a "systems upgrade" broke the NYSE, A) who makes that software B) is that company publicly traded C) can I short it 2.23pm ET Farley projected the NYSE to resume trading within the hour, which would give the exchange roughly an hour of running normally before the daily “close” of 4pm ET.Meanwhile the New York Times’ Nathaniel Popper reports that the NYSE had to manually cancel some 700,000 existing orders so that it could restart the exchange, citing a trader on the floor.Floor trader says the NYSE is rebooting its systems, which can take 45 minutes, and hopes everything is working when it's up again 2.14pm ET The NYSE will be up and running again before close today, president Thomas Farley has just told CNBC. “We identified the issue and we have that addressed,” he says, estimating between a return to business around 2.45-3pm. 2.04pm ET Guardian editors weigh in. Tech support from national security editor Spencer Ackerman.Have they tried turning the stock exchange off & turning it back on?#NYSE shutdown was it a) Time Warner Cable went down or b) Y2K?Was it the leap second that caused all this chaos? http://t.co/Lm5zinMB1e 1.58pm ET “At this point it’s unclear what kind of impact this particular glitch will have,” adds Earnest, to whom Guardian DC bureau chief Dan Roberts was also listening.Earnest says it’s “too early to offer an assessment [on any economic impact]” but said the Treasury department and Securities and Exchange Commission were closely monitoring the situation. 1.47pm ET President Barack Obama was briefed this morning on the suspension on Wall Street, White House press secretary Josh Earnest has just said during a press briefing.Earnest’s message (paraphrased): don’t panic.Obama briefed on NYSE outage by homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco who says 'no indication of malicious actors involved' says @PressSec 1.36pm ET Two hours into the stoppage, the apparent electronic glitch is not inspiring Wall Street about the quality of the exchange, Guardian US business editor Dominic Rushe (@dominicru) reports:Jack Ablin, chief investment officer of BMO Private Bank, said he initially worried that China’s woes had spread to the US when he heard the news and was relieved that it appeared to be a technical glitch. “That said it doesn’t add a lot of confidence in the markets when investors don’t have a lot to begin with,” he said.“At the NYSE this is a manual process,” said Sal Arnuk, a principal at Themis Trading. “Is the NYSE technologically the most (robust) exchange in the world? No. The fact of the matter is the different exchange operators have diverse standards, different architecture. Some of them are more legacy than others. This is to be expected from time to time.”According to the trader, the exchange said that the new software caused problems soon after trading began on Wednesday and the exchange decided to shut down trading all together to fix the problem. 1.25pm ET The exchange has been closed for more than an hour and a half now, since 11.32am. The longer it goes the more traders emerge to smoke, notes my colleague Jana Kasperkevic – but the traders are pretty insouciant about the break, at least so far.At about 1 pm – an hour and a half after the trading halted at 11.32am, one of the traders walked over to the barricades. He had been standing a few feet away in the comfortable shade of the building he works at. After a reporter beckoned him, he strolled over and other reporters flocked to him.“What? Do you want my autograph now?” he asked. “I can’t comment,” he said. 1.20pm ET Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson is delivering a speech on cybersecurity in Washington, and opened by saying the stoppage is not due to “nefarious actions”. The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs is listening in.Johnson: It appears that today we had a system malfunctions at United, the New York Stock Exchange and the Wall Street JournalJohnson says it appears that the malfunctions at United and NYSE was not the result of nefarious actions. We know less about the WSJ 1.16pm ET My colleague Jana Kasperkevic is on Wall Street, where the exchange looms up over the sidewalk. She reports:The New York State Exchange stand regal in the downtown Manhattan, one side of it draped in huge American flag. Even as tourists snap selfies and family portraits nearby, the building remains inaccessible as the traders who work on its floors are separated from the public by metal barricades. The exchange has claimed at least a ten-feet wide sidewalk, where traders can smoke in peace. And smoke they did on Wednesday. Bunch of tourists snapping selfies outside #nyse. Maybe it's the flag? pic.twitter.com/Na2BRR67Et 1.11pm ET A US official has told the Guardian that there is no indication anything that happened today was the result of any malicious actor, cyber attack, etc.The day is apparently full of coincidences of a technically glitchy nature, however. United Airlines grounded all US flights over computer issues earlier on Wednesday, telling my colleague Amanda Holpuch (@holpuch) the major delays were due to a “network connectivity issue”. The Wall Street Journal’s website also briefly shut down around midday.Wonder if tomorrow is going to be bad for Wall Street.... we can only hope. 12.54pm ET The NYSE has elaborated a bit on the closure, saying it was caused by “an internal technical issue and is not the result of a cyber breach”.A spokesperson for the NYSE released this statement: ““We’re currently experiencing a technical issue that we’re working to resolve as quickly as possible. We will be providing further updates as soon as we can, and are doing our utmost to produce a swift resolution, communicate thoroughly and transparently, and ensure a timely and orderly market re-open.”(2 of 3) We chose to suspend trading on NYSE to avoid problems arising from our technical issue.(3 of 3) NYSE-listed securities continue to trade unaffected on other market centers. 12.50pm ET The New York Stock Exchange unexpectedly stopped all trading at about 11.30am ET on Wednesday after a “major technical issue”.The NYSE’s website only reads: “Additional information will follow as soon as possible.” Continue reading...
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