Price Limits - when Indices stop trading

A couple of traders have asked why US Indices sometimes stop trading, then restart. This could be because of ā€˜circuit-breakerā€™ limits designed to stop irrational panic or exuberance from destabilising the markets.

At fixed level, the exchanges impose trading halts (or in some cases you can only buy, or only sell). The limits are percentage based and vary according to the time of day. Hereā€™s a good example based on the S & P 500 https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/equity-index/faq-sp-500-price-limits.html .

During a trading halt, you wonā€™t be able to place a trade on the index.

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First freeze is there on Wall Street. I think the best idea would be to close the markets for a week world wide. Let it cool down. This is ridiculous. Some stocks are rapidly going to zero if it continues like this.

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agree, need to start again on Monday, people are just selling for the sake of selling

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Just to add to the above, when the cash market is trading, there are circuit breaker limits at 7%, 13% and 20% for the index., in addition to the limits on individual equities. More details here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_curb