The New York Stock Exchange was forced to halt trading on all stocks for more than three hours on Wednesday because of a technical glitch. President Obama has been briefed but there is no sign of the problem being down to a cyber attack.
The exchange began accepting orders and resumed trading on its two equity platforms just after 3:00pm EST, around three and half hours after they were suspended. the closing auctions will go ahead as normal.
At 11:04 the exchange had posted a notice saying that it was investigating a "reported technical issue". Half an hour later the Intercontinental Exchange-owned outfit confirmed that it had "temporarily suspended trading in all symbols. All open orders will be cancelled."
On Twitter it added:
No furthe details on the cause of the problem have been provided, although Bloomberg is reporting the likely culprit as a software update that went awry.
Nyse Arca and Nyse Amex/Arca options were unaffected. Meanwhile, other exchanges, including Nasdaq say that they are trading as normal.
President Obama has been briefed, with White House press secretary Josh Earnest saying that there is "no indication that there are malicious actors involved".
Meanwhile, Securities and Exchange Commission chair Mary Jo White said in a statement: "we are in contact with the Nyse and are closely monitoring the situation."