NYSE Mulling Higher Triggers to Halt Trading in Market Decline, Sources Say

The New York Stock Exchange is considering changing rules to allow the Dow Jones industrial average to fall as much as 800 points before trading in U.S. equities is halted, people familiar with the situation said.

Big Board officials are in discussions that would let the Dow fall 600 to 800 points before temporarily shutting down trading. The halt would be enacted again if the average tumbled 1,200 to 1,600 points, the sources said. Further declines could lead to a third suspension, they said.

The world’s biggest stock exchange is under pressure to alter the shutdown triggers after trading was automatically stopped when the Dow industrials fell 554 points, or 7.2%, on Oct. 27. Regulators and traders said the decline was too small to interrupt trading.

NYSE officials declined to comment. Earlier this month, NYSE Chairman Richard Grasso said securities firms told him “that 350 and 550 points,” the current triggers, “are too low.” Some traders have suggested a percentage-point trigger that would rise or fall as the Dow index did.