Trading Halt
A temporary suspension of trading in one or more securities, ordered by an exchange or regulator to allow the market to absorb material information.
What is Trading Halt?
A trading halt is a temporary pause in buying and selling a security or group of securities on an exchange. Halts can be ordered by the exchange itself, a national regulator such as the SEC, or triggered automatically by circuit breakers. Common reasons include the imminent release of material news (such as an earnings announcement or a merger), regulatory concerns about a company's disclosures, extreme price volatility, or technical failures at the exchange. Regulatory halts under the SEC's trading suspension authority can last up to ten business days. Exchange-initiated halts for news dissemination typically last a few minutes to an hour. Individual stock halts differ from market-wide circuit breakers, which suspend all equity trading simultaneously.
Example
When GameStop Corp. was set to announce a major strategic shift in February 2024, NYSE halted trading in its shares for approximately 40 minutes during the regular session to allow the news to disseminate fairly across all market participants. Once the halt was lifted and the announcement was made public, normal trading resumed with the stock reacting immediately to the news.
Source: Investopedia — Trading Halt