What is a Trading Halt?
Trading halts are short periods where the active trading on a security is suspended. Often, the issuance of a trading halt has to do with some type of public announcement that made about the security or the company that issues the security. Once the announcement has been made, the trading halt ends and trading on the security can resume. However, there is a second reason for the enactment of a trading halt. In the event that some type of order imbalance occurs with a given security, a stock market authority may impose a temporary hiatus on any buying or selling of the security. Essentially, this is an attempt to allow the security to settle back into a state of balance between the orders to buy and sell. Typically, a trading halt will only last for a short period of time. In the event that the stoppage of trading took place due to a pending public announcement, the halt may be ended as quickly as a half-hour after the announcement is complete. The idea behind a trading halt in this ins
