When the NYSE glitched, the world jumped

Take it as a good sign for the future of media — and perhaps a sign also of heightened interest in China's stock market crash and Greece's financial crisis — that so many people were alarmed by a small technical glitch which caused the New York Stock Exchange to temporarily shut down trading on Wednesday (it resumed trading after nearly 4 hours.)

The NYSE often halts trading for a variety of non-glitch reasons, but it is known to have experienced quite a few unexpected technical glitches in its history, too. This particular glitch was not much of a surprise to most professionals who watch it on a regular basis. In fact, NYSE treated the matter as formally as it always does its errors.

(1 of 2) We’re experiencing a technical issue that we’re working to resolve as quickly as possible.

— NYSE (@NYSE) July 8, 2015

(2 of 2) We're doing our utmost to produce a swift resolution & will be providing further updates as soon as we can.

— NYSE (@NYSE) July 8, 2015

(1 of 3) The issue we are experiencing is an internal technical issue and is not the result of a cyber breach.

— NYSE (@NYSE) July 8, 2015

(2 of 3) We chose to suspend trading on NYSE to avoid problems arising from our technical issue.

— NYSE (@NYSE) July 8, 2015

(3 of 3) NYSE-listed securities continue to trade unaffected on other market centers.

— NYSE (@NYSE) July 8, 2015

Keep in mind, too, NYSE is legally required to keep communications about public information to a minimum. Still, we can take the jittery reaction as a sign that a lot of people are watching markets more closely in light of recent market phenomena.

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