Section 2 · Market Mechanics
Halts & Circuit Breakers
The market's emergency brakes — and what they mean for your trade.
A trading halt is a forced pause — the market's emergency brake.
Individual halts occur for news or volatility. Market-wide circuit breakers trigger at 7%, 13%, and 20% S&P 500 drops. Both create opportunity and risk for momentum traders.
3 things to know
Trading halts can last minutes or hours — you cannot exit your position during a halt.
Market-wide circuit breakers pause all US trading simultaneously.
News pending halts often precede major price moves — up or down.
Dive Deeper
Key vocabulary — tap each card
Practice
Scenario
You are long 500 shares of RNWK at $12.40. It gaps up 60% on FDA news, then suddenly halts — news pending. Level 2 showed thin asks above. The halt lasts 20 minutes. It resumes, gapping to $14.80. What is your move?
Did you know?
Many traders place market orders the moment a halted stock resumes. On resumption, the first few seconds have extreme slippage — your market order may fill $1–$2 away from the displayed price.