Tech Problems Halt London Stock Exchange

Trading on the London Stock Exchange has been halted by a technical problem with its primary electronic gateways. The outage, which has been blamed on connectivity problems with the exchange's trading gateways, highlights the critical importance of electronic trading systems in the normal function of the global financial markets. All trades in London have been placed in an "auction call period" in which buy orders are matched to sellers, but the deal does not actually go through until the period ends. LSE has yet to announce when this "uncrossing time" will be. Detailed updates are available on the stock exchange's incident communication page.

See The Register, Bloomberg and MarketWatch for additional details and updates. Stock markets in the U.S. are closed today for the Thanksgiving holiday.