Wall Street grinds to halt over ‘technical issue’

The New York Stock Exchange stopped trading in the late morning Wednesday because of a technical issue, though shares continued to trade on other exchanges.

The exchange says a technical problem that has suspended trading since late morning is an internal technical issue and not the result of a security breach.

Trading continued on Nasdaq and other exchanges.

The White House says President Barack Obama has been briefed on the technical issue that has halted trading.

Trading exchanges have struggled with technical trouble in recent years. In May 2010, the Dow Jones industrial average plunged hundreds of points in minutes due to mass selling triggered by computerized trading programs. In March 2012, BATS Global Markets, a Kansas company that offers stock trading services, canceled its own IPO after several technical snafus.

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 to trade went through. In 2013, trading in options in Chicago was halted due to an outage caused by software problems.

— AP