With NYSE floor trading halted, Art Cashin, director of floor operations at NYSE for UBS, had some advice for retail investors.
"This will not cause a move in any particular direction, so I would kind of wait it out and see what happens. If the market were in freefall when something happened, then you might be concerned that your opportunity to do something would be denied you. But we're already down," he told CNBC.
Cashin said the halt appears to be due to a system malfunction.
"We've had some technical malfunctions. Some may be related to connectivity with other exchanges. I believe we're going to have a temporary pause certainly in a variety of stocks perhaps floor wide," he added.
CORRECTION: This version corrected Cashin's title to director of NYSE floor operations for UBS.