How long does a trading halt last?

A Limit Up-Limit Down volatility pause normally lasts 5 minutes and can be extended if the reopening auction can't find a fair price. A news halt (T1) usually lasts until the news is out plus some time for the market to absorb it, often 30 minutes to an hour, but it can be longer. Regulatory halts and SEC suspensions can last days.

Can you sell a stock during a trading halt?

No trades happen on any US venue while a stock is halted. Many brokers let you place or cancel orders during the halt, and those orders take part in the reopening auction, but nothing fills until trading resumes.

LUDP marks a Limit Up-Limit Down volatility pause: the stock moved outside its allowed price band and couldn't return within 15 seconds, so trading paused for 5 minutes. It says nothing about news; it's purely about the speed of the move.

T1 means 'news pending': the exchange halted the stock because material news is about to be released. When the news starts going out, the code usually changes to T2 (news released) before trading resumes.

Is a trading halt good or bad for a stock?

Neither by itself. A halt on the way up can be followed by a higher reopen or a sharp fade, and a news halt can lead to a big move either way. What matters is the news, the volume and where the reopening auction prices the stock.

Guides

Trading Halts Explained: LULD Pauses, News Halts, Codes and What Happens Next

November 1, 2026 · 8 min read

Few things rattle a trader like a stock that suddenly stops trading. One minute the price is flying, the next the quote freezes and your order sits there. Trading halts are normal, rule-based pauses, and they happen dozens of times on a busy day, mostly in small, fast-moving stocks. Knowing why a stock was halted, and what happens when it reopens, turns a scary moment into a plannable one.

Two kinds of halts

US stock halts fall into two groups:

Volatility pauses. The stock moved too far, too fast. These are automatic, last about five minutes, and are governed by the Limit Up-Limit Down rules. They show up with the code LUDP.
News and regulatory halts. The exchange stops trading because material news is pending, because it needs information from the company, or because a regulator steps in. These have codes like T1, T12 or H10 and can last much longer.

How Limit Up-Limit Down (LULD) works

Under the Limit Up-Limit Down Plan, every listed stock has a moving price band around a reference price, which is the average price of the last five minutes of trading.

Tier 1 stocks (the S&P 500, the Russell 1000 and some ETFs) priced above $3.00 get a 5% band.
Tier 2 stocks (everything else) priced above $3.00 get a 10% band.
Stocks between $0.75 and $3.00 get a 20% band, and cheaper stocks get wider bands still.
The bands double in the last 25 minutes of the regular session for Tier 1 stocks and for Tier 2 stocks at or below $3.00.

If the best bid or offer reaches the edge of the band, the stock enters a limit state. If it can't trade back inside the band within 15 seconds, trading pauses for 5 minutes. Then the listing exchange runs a reopening auction to find a price where buyers and sellers meet. If the imbalance is too large, the pause can be extended.

This is why a small-cap runner can halt several times in a row: every reopen that jumps another 10% or 20% can trip the band again.

Market-wide circuit breakers

Separate from single-stock LULD pauses, the whole market has circuit breakers based on the S&P 500's drop from the prior close:

Level 1, a 7% drop, and Level 2, a 13% drop: trading halts across the market for 15 minutes, if it happens before 3:25 p.m. Eastern.
Level 3, a 20% drop: trading stops for the rest of the day.

These are rare. Single-stock pauses are the ones you'll meet every week.

Halt codes you'll see

Nasdaq publishes the full list of halt codes. The ones that matter most:

Code	Meaning
LUDP	Limit Up-Limit Down volatility pause (about 5 minutes)
T1	News pending: material news is about to be released
T2	News released: the news is going out; trading resumes after
T12	Additional information requested by the exchange
H10	Trading suspended by the SEC
H4 / H9	Not in compliance with listing rules / not current in filings

A T1 followed by T2 is the classic earnings or FDA pattern. A T12 often means the exchange wants answers from the company, and those halts can run long. H10 is serious: an SEC suspension usually lasts up to ten trading days.

What happens to your orders

Nothing fills during a halt, on any US venue.
Your broker may let you place, change or cancel orders. Orders that stay live join the reopening auction.
Stop orders don't protect you through a halt. If a stock reopens far below your stop, the stop becomes a market order at the reopen price.
Market orders at the reopen are risky. The first prints can be wildly away from the last trade. Limit orders give you control.

Trading around halts

Don't chase into a halt. Buying the last tick before a limit-up pause means you're paying the highest price of the move, and the reopen can just as easily print lower.
Watch the reopen, not the halt. The auction price and the first minute of trading tell you whether buyers are still there.
Expect repeat halts on low-float runners. Thin float plus a hot catalyst means more pauses. Float matters.
Read the news on T1 halts. The direction of the move depends entirely on what's announced.
Size down. Halts make gaps against your position more likely; position size is your real stop.

Where to follow halts

Nasdaq's trade halts page lists every current halt with its code and resumption time. In the Finradar web app, the Trading halts panel lists recent halts with their reason, next to the chart, movers and unusual volume, so you can see why a runner stopped without leaving the desk.

Not financial advice. Halted and fast-moving stocks carry elevated risk, including large gaps at the reopen.