Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York City, U.S., April 4, 2025. Brendan McDermid | Reuters
When stock prices and stock futures fall rapidly in a single session, exchanges implement halts in trading to allow a moment for cooler heads to prevail and avoid market crashes we’ve seen in the past on Wall Street.
Such moves usually take place during times of extreme market volatility, such as March 2020 — when the Covid-19 pandemic sent global markets tumbling. This time, surging global trade tensions sparked by surprisingly high universal tariffs implemented by President Donald Trump are putting massive pressure on equities with selling pressure increasing going into Monday. Futures tied to the S&P 500 were tumbling overnight.
‘Limit down’ futures
In non-U.S. trading hours — between 6 p.m. ET and 9:30 a.m. ET the following day — if S&P futures are down 7%, then trading is halted until traders willing to buy the contract at the “limit down” level emerge.
Russell 2000 futures, which track the small-cap benchmark, briefly reached that threshold overnight, falling 7% before bouncing.
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