NASDAQ stock market temporarily shuts down after glitch freezes trading (update)

NASDAQ stock market activity has been temporarily suspended because of a glitch in its system. The Wall Street Journal reports that a technical issue stopped pricing data from being sent out and caused trading to grind to a stop. Shortly after, around 12:14PM ET, trading was suspended altogether, and the New York Stock Exchange has began canceling orders and stopping further trades. CNBC reports that Dow Jones has said trading will resume “shortly,” but no further word has been given. NASDAQ confirmed the problem to The Verge, saying the issue was being investigated and trading should come back online shortly.

While the exact cause of the problem is still unknown, it’s the latest in a series of high-profile glitches to affect the stock exchange. Facebook’s first day of public trading was marred by a problem processing trades, causing the New York Stock Exchange and others to begin looking for ways to shut down systems before glitches could hurt trading. More recently, hackers have stepped up attacks against stock markets as well; last month, five men were prosecuted for cracking NASDAQ’s email servers, though they didn’t touch the actual trading data.

Update: The Wall Street Journal reports that some trading should resume at 2:45pm ET, with Bloomberg saying that all trading will be back online by 3:10pm.

Final Update: NASDAQ has resumed all trading as of 3:25pm ET. NASDAQ has issued the following statement on the downtime:

Earlier this afternoon, NASDAQ OMX became aware that price quotes were not being disseminated by the Securities Information Processor (SIP), which consolidates and disseminates all prices for the industry.

There was a connectivity issue between an exchange participant and the SIP, which lead to a degradation in the ability of the SIP to disseminate consolidated quotes and trades. The cause of the issue has been identified and addressed.