Trading Issue Affects More than 150 NYSE Arca ETFs

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A number of large exchange-traded funds were halted Tuesday morning due to technical issues affecting NYSE Arca.

Trading in more than 160 ETFs was impacted from a computer server problem tied to the Arca exchange. The issue first began at 10:05 a.m. EDT, according to a NYSE trading alert. The problem was resolved at 12:19 p.m. EDT, another alert said. The trading issue carried on throughout the morning as the server problem also affected incoming data from Arcabook, the NYSE Arca data feed.

The symbols halted included securities with symbols ranging from UTG to ZSML. Among the largest ETFs by market value in that group are the Vanguard Total Stock Market VTI -0.91% Index Fund, the Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund XLF -0.70% and the Vanguard FTSE Europe ETF VGK -1.63%.

Brett Mock, managing director at brokerage JonesTrading Institutional Services LLC, says the problem was a non-event in the sense that it did not create any big dislocation in the marketplace. He adds that on a low-volume day it did not impact overall sentiment in equities.

In the NYSE’s latest alert, the exchange advises customers to use the Securities Information Processor (SIP) for market data and not rely on the Arcabook feed for the remainder of the day for those symbols between UTG and ZSML. The SIP acts as a central, consolidated live stream, aggregating every exchange’s best bids and offers. The data comes directly from all the exchanges, is processed and disseminated back out as a single stream of data.

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A number of large exchange-traded funds were halted Tuesday morning due to technical issues affecting NYSE Arca.