Nasdaq Makes Rare Call to Halt All Trading

UPDATE 3:25 p.m. ET --  All Nasdaq trading has resumed. Markets seem to have taken the 3-hour halt in stride:

It is still unclear what prompted the outage.

UPDATE 2:48 p.m. ET-- Bloomberg News reportsthat all trading will resume at 3:25 p.m. ET. However, this marks the sixth time that the Nasdaq's relaunch time has been moved forward.

We'll see if it's for real this time.

UPDATE 1:51 p.m. ET -- Unconfirmedreports claim the Nasdaq should be back online within one hour -- and CNBC is on it:

@dashbot

UPDATE 1:38 p.m. ET --  Here's something worth noting:

[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/lauramandaro/status/370600411385720832"]

UPDATE 1:26 p.m. ET --The Wall Street Journal reports Nasdaq trading is expected to resume shortly.

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An alleged technical issue forced exchange officials on Thursday to halt all trading in securities listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market:

It's flatlining !

The Wall Street Journal offers some detail:

Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. announced the halt at 12:15 p.m. ET Thursday, and other exchanges followed suit. Nasdaq also said it was halting trade in its options markets. A spokesman for Nasdaq declined further comment.

Notices of halts in individual securities started to cross the wire at about 12:18 p.m. ET in alphabetical order by ticker symbol, starting with the exchange-traded fund iShares MSCI All Country Asia Information Technology ETF, AAIT -0.18%

As of this writing, it is uncertain what prompted the trading halt. Certain news outlets have cited unknown technical errors, but these have yet to be confirmed.

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Follow Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) on Twitter

Featured image Getty Images

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