SEC Fines NYSE $9 Million Over 2023 Opening Auction Failure

The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced settled charges against the New York Stock Exchange for a January 2023 systems failure that prevented opening auctions for more than 2,800 securities. The SEC's order states the disruption occurred on January 24, 2023, when the NYSE inadvertently ran its primary and backup trading systems concurrently.

This caused the primary system to incorrectly assume opening auctions had already been completed for the affected stocks. The regulator found the exchange lacked written procedures to monitor its auction systems and was unaware of the full scale of the problem for nearly 90 minutes after trading began.

The failure led to significant market impacts, including price-triggered trading restrictions, market-wide trading pauses in 84 securities, and thousands of busted trades. The SEC determined the NYSE violated Regulation SCI and the Exchange Act by failing to comply with its own rules.

Without admitting or denying the findings, the NYSE agreed to a cease-and-desist order and will pay a $9 million civil penalty.