The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), on which Signet Jewelers and Tiffany & Co. both trade, suspended trading of all securities on July 8 due to a technical glitch.

Trading stopped at 11:32 a.m. EDT and by 11:51 a message on the NYSE website said that all open orders would be canceled and that “additional information will follow as soon as possible.” The NYSE later clarified via Twitter that “the issue we are experiencing is an internal technical issue and is not the result of a cyber breach” and that “we chose to suspend trading on NYSE to avoid problems arising from our technical issue.” It also assured traders that “NYSE-listed securities continue to trade unaffected on other market centers.”

The Financial Times reported that the last time a technical glitch fell a market was in 2013, when NASDAQ halted trading for three hours. 

Earlier in the day, United Airlines grounded planes for more than an hour due to a “network connectivity issue,” leading to speculation that the events were related. The Department of Homeland Security told CNN, however, that there was “no sign of malicious activity” at the NYSE or United.

At press time, the NYSE was still down. 

JCK