Stock market outages may be more common

Trading has resumed on the New York Stock Exchange after an outage of more than three hours caused by technical problems.

The New York Stock Exchange stopped trading late Wednesday morning because of technical trouble, though NYSE-listed shares continued to trade on other exchanges.

In a note to traders, the exchange confirmed that all open orders had been canceled except for the long-term requests to buy or sell known as “good-till-cancel” orders. NBC News is reporting a “major technical” issue.

ANOTHER SNAFU: United Airlines temporarily grounded all its flights in the USA because of a problem with its computer system.

This story will be updated. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rebounded 4.1 percent to 24,492.45 a day after suffering its biggest drop since the financial crisis. The NYSE accounted for less than a quarter of USA stock trading in the past month, according to data from BATS Global Markets, one of its rivals.

However, many traders said that it did not matter that the NYSE was down.

CHINA TURMOIL: Frantic efforts by authorities to arrest the almost monthlong slide in the country’s stock markets appeared to be giving investors pause, with the main benchmark swinging between gains and losses.

NEW YORK (AP) – It was already a tough day in the market when the unexpected hit. The suspension of trading was longest at the exchange in recent memory.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 261 points, or 1.5 percent, to end at 17,515.

Analysts attributed the rout not to the computer problems but to worries about Greece and China, where stocks have plunged more than 30 percent since mid-June.

The IntercontinentalExchange Group, which bought NYSE Euronext in late 2012, is down 1.7 percent.

The S&P 500 index is down 12.21 points, or 0.6 percent. The decision effected all domestic United and Continental Airline flights. But it has a separate benefit Wednesday – it allows investors to step over the fallen NYSE and keep trading. Trading on other exchanges was not affected. In fact, some insiders have speculated that Wednesday’s problems may have been caused by too much traffic from high-speed trading, not too little.

“It’s a glitch. It’s an inconvenience”, Tom Caldwell, chairman of Toronto-based Caldwell Securities, said of the NYSE shutdown, “But the slack is picked up right away”.

And while the US exchange system has gotten increasingly fragmented with 11 different exchanges, which is often a criticism, today the ability of investors to seamlessly move their trading to other exchanges is a sign the system works, Mostowfi says. It did not specify the exact nature of the technical issue. “While NYSE is working to resolve the situation, NYSE and NYSE MKT stocks continue to trade normally through other trading venues”.