Circuit Breakers

I’ve had a job in the financial industry for over a dozen years, and on Monday I finally got to see what it looks like when stocks plummet so hard that trading halts. (Trading might have halted in the past 12 years, but I never saw it.) I flipped on the news when I saw the circuit breaker was imminent and I got to see it unfold live.

The CNN reporter at the exchange was scattered, because clearly someone was talking into her earpiece. She was saying things like, “There’s supposed to be a bell,” when we could clearly hear a bell behind her. I was thrown too, because it was a chiming bell, like a ringtone – I suppose it could have been a ringtone. I think we both expected a blaring bell. Perhaps there was one and the chimes were a warning.

Stephanie Ruhle at MSNBC was her usual steely self, and they had no one on the floor at the pivotal moment, so she just carried on while the number on the screen sat at 7% until she got the official word.

CNBC was, of course, the most phlegmatic, explaining this was to be expected in so many ways. Nothing was on screen but graphs, graphs, graphs.

Milestone for me, though.