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... Last week’s volatility also triggered a frenzy of single-stock trading halts, which temporarily pause trading in a company’s shares if they abruptly experience a big price move. For most large stocks, that means a 5% increase or decrease within a five-minute period. There were 781 single-stock halts Thursday, more than the total amount for all of January and February combined, according to MayStreet, a financial-data vendor. Among the stocks temporarily halted that day were Occidental Petroleum Corp., Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and Sirius XM Holdings Inc. But it was the marketwide circuit breakers—triggered at 9:34 a.m. and 9:35 a.m....

Stocks fell sharply on Monday even after the Federal Reserve embarked on a massive monetary stimulus campaign to curb slower economic growth amid the coronavirus outbreak. The S&P 500 dropped 8.14% shortly after the open, triggering a “circuit breaker” trading halt that will last for 15 minutes. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 9.7%, or 2,250 points. The Nasdaq Composite slid 6.1%. Before the open, futures contracts tied to the major averages hit their “limit down” levels, meaning they could not trade below that threshold. Those limits are imposed by the CME Group to maintain orderly market behavior. While the...

RFFM.org's Founder and Executive Director, Dan Zanoza, will be a guest on the Dr. Laurie Roth Radio Show [www.therothshow.com] on Monday, July 26, 2010 between 6 and 7 P.M. Central time. Zanoza will be discussing a new RFFM.org project, Advocates for Seniors, Retired and Disabled (ASRD). RFFM / ASRD will soon publish a quarterly e-newsletter for subscribers with the purpose of sharing information about a segment of American society the Obama administration apparently deems politically expendable. Broadcast out of Washington state on the IRN-USA Radio Network, Roth's radio talk show is nationally syndicated and "is on a mission to examine...

* MAY 10, 2010, 6:50 P.M. ET UPDATE: SEC, US Exchanges Agree On Market-Wide Circuit Breaker (Updates with comment from the Treasury Department, CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler, and additional detail.) WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the major trading exchanges agreed Monday a market-wide "circuit-breaker" system should be established to handle the type of market volatility demonstrated in Thursday's unsettling market plunge, according to people familiar with the matter. At the meeting, the exchanges each agreed to give regulators a plan for how to alter their own rules to meet a more unified standard within 24 hours,...

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Market watchdogs and six major exchanges agreed new safeguards were needed to curb trading in plunging markets, an effort to address last Thursday's mysterious market free fall. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro met on Monday with the leaders of major stock and option exchanges, as well as the brokerage industry watchdog, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). "As a first step, the parties agreed on a structural framework, to be refined over the next day, for strengthening circuit breakers and handling erroneous trades," Schapiro said in a statement that provided no further detail. Regulators...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - For the second time in just under a year, a circuit breaker failed on the international space station Wednesday, shutting down one of the gyroscopes needed to keep the orbiting outpost steady and pointed in the right position. The circuit breaker was a new one put in by spacewalking astronauts last summer. In a repeat from one year ago, the latest failure left the space station with only two functioning gyroscopes, the bare minimum needed for control, NASA (news - web sites) said. This time, though, the problem could affect NASA's plans to launch Discovery to...