Responding to a technology glitch on Aug. 22 that disrupted the trading of NASDAQ-listed securities, the latest among numerous “flash Crashes,” Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Jo White convened a meeting with the top national exchanges on Thursday. Now, they have more work to do.

The meeting included representatives of Nasdaq, NYSE and other  equities and options exchanges, along with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, and the Options Clearing Corporation.  

White, according to a post-meting statement outlined a series of steps those parties should undertake to better ensure market stability and resiliency. Among the measures they agreed to:

• Providing comprehensive action plans that address the standards necessary to establish highly resilient and robust systems for the securities information processors (SIPs), including testing standards and disclosure protocols.

• Identifying and providing assessments of the robustness and resilience of all critical infrastructure systems.

• Providing an SIP plan and/or rule amendments addressing the issuance, effectiveness, and communication of regulatory halts.

• Reviewing their rules relating to the trade break process and procedures to reopen trading following a trading halt, and provide amendments to those rules as necessary.

• Providing rule amendments to implement “kill switches” that would allow exchanges to shut down trading in the event of technological failures.

“In short order, I also want those at the meeting – with the input of other market participants – to identify a series of concrete measures designed to address specific areas where the robustness and resilience of market systems can be improved, including the systems that were at the core of last month's trading interruption,” White said.