Stock halts are all too familiar to traders these days as volatility consumes the stock market like never seen before.
WHAT IS A TRADING HALT?
A trading halt is a temporary suspension of trading for a particular security or securities at one exchange or across numerous exchanges. Trading can be halted in anticipation of a news announcement, to correct an order imbalance, as a result of a technical glitch, due to regulatory concerns or because the price of the security or an index has moved rapidly enough to trigger a halt based on exchange rules. When a trading halt is in effect, open orders may be canceled, and options still may be exercised. (source Investopedia)
Above is a stock that is traded on the OTC market ticket symbol $NTTCF that shows an increase in price of 99,900%. The public float for this stock is very low at only around 64 million in total public float. Low float names in the OTC market can trade with heavy volatility and it seems to be more common than what you find on the regular stock exchange.
There are some that say this 99,9000% increase is nothing more than a “Glitch” but others are questioning what allows certain names to run like crazy and other names be halted with just a small increase or decrease in price.
AMC Stock has had moments where buying volume and momentum seem to be bringing the stock towards all-time highs, but volatility halts for AMC stock bring the stock to a halt and then crashes down shortly after.
The real question is if or not market halts help or hurt investors, and if investors would be better off just letting a stock trade freely.
READ MORE: AMC STOCK RALLY CONTINUES! STOCK HALTED!