The New York Stock Exchange has had a bumpy day, according to Art Cashin, director of floor operations at the NYSE. Following technical issues with connectivity, the NYSE halted all trades, prompting a collective freakout on Twitter. Following the software glitch that grounded United Airlines flights this morning, the shutdown prompted fears of a broader bug or cyberattack. The department of Homeland Security was quick to issue a statement, however, saying there was "no indication" the outages were related or that a cyberattack was behind any of the problems.
Contributing to the mood of panic in the financial community, the website of The Wall Street Journal went down shortly after the NYSE. But so far the details on these issues have pointed to rather mundane causes.
New: @united says ground stop this morning was due a router that degraded network connectivity.
— Phil LeBeau (@Lebeaucarnews) July 8, 2015
The exchange has been down for roughly 45 minutes at this point. In the meantime, NYSE rival NASDAQ continues to operate normally and is trading NYSE listed companies.
11:32:57 - trades from NYSE drop sharply, sputter a few minutes, then nothing. Each dot a NYSE trade pic.twitter.com/QmJl8Y2b91
— Eric Scott Hunsader (@nanexllc) July 8, 2015
And while Skynet has been the butt of jokes about the outage, the best fictional parallel is actually Live Free or Die Hard.
The NYSE has now backed up Homeland Security's assertion that this is not a cyber attack.
(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
And it's back!
BREAKING: NYSE trading resumes after 3 hour and 38 minute halt due to tech glitch » http://t.co/jvkuQmCl7n
— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) July 8, 2015