All,
U.S. stock market circuit breaker rules
October 27, 1997 2:09 PM EST
NEW YORK, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Following the stock market plunge of October, 1987, the Securities and Exchange Commission adopted rules intended to forestall future crashes.
The rules are referred to as ''circuit breakers'' because they gradually inhibit trading during market declines, first curbing New York Stock Exchange program trades and eventually halting all U.S. equity, options and futures activity.
The following is a list of the current circuit breakers and conditions required to trigger them:
+++ If the Dow Jones Industrial Average rises or falls 50 points from previous session's close: Index arbitrage orders on the New York Stock Exchange in Standard & Poor's 500 stocks are prohibited unless they act in a stabilizing fashion, such as purchases after a decline in price levels or sales after price increases.
The curb remains in effect unless the Dow Industrials return to within 25 points of their previous close.
+++ If the Chicago Mercantile Exchange S&P 500 futures index falls 12 points before 3:25 p.m.::
The futures price contract is not allowed to fall further for 15 minutes.
Also, all program market orders in S&P 500 stocks entered via the NYSE's computer system are diverted to a separate file, also known as a ''sidecar.'' After a five minute delay, those trades that can be are paired off.
Trading is halted in any stock where an imbalance exists that cannot be absorbed in an orderly fashion. Individual imbalanced are handled under normal NYSE procedures but under certain conditions, the exchange publicly releases extra information about individual imbalances.
New stop orders are barred on the NYSE for the rest of the day except for individual investor orders of 2,099 shares or fewer.
The following circuit breakers apply to all equity, options and futures markets:
+++ If the Dow Industrials fall 350 points from the previous close:
Trading on all exchanges and on Nasdaq would be halted for 30 minutes.
+++ If the Dow Industrials fall 550 points:
All trading is halted for one hour.
The last two circuit breakers have never been triggered.
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