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What are circuit breakers & trading halts?

When markets become extremely volatile, a market-wide circuit breaker can halt trading across all U.S. exchanges and venues.

During a trading halt, all buying or selling is temporarily suspended. All orders will be queued to be executed only once the halt is lifted. 

These halts are triggered at three circuit breaker thresholds, based on a predefined % increase or decrease against the previous day’s closing price of the S&P 500.

The three circuit breaker levels:

• Level 1: +/- 7% 
• Level 2: +/- 13% 
• Level 3: +/- 20% 

Times of circuit breakers 

• A Level 1 and Level 2 breach can be triggered between 9:30am and 3:25pm.
• A Level 3 breach can be triggered at any time. 
• A Level 1 and Level 2 breach halts trading for a minimum of 15 minutes. 
• A Level 3 breach halts trading for the remainder of the trading day. 

Orders during a halt 

You can continue to use Stake and place orders, but these will not be executed until the market re-opens. We cannot guarantee execution in full or in part.   

When a halt occurs, all non-executed orders will remain in a pending state until they’re cleared, cancelled or expired. You can cancel these pending orders at any time during the halt.