NEW YORK, Jan 24 Reuters A glitch at the New York Stock Exchange prevented the opening auctions for a slew of stocks on Tuesday, prompting widespread trading halts, confusion over whether orders were being filled at correct prices, and trades in more than 250 securities being busted.

The NYSE, which is owned by Intercontinental Exchange Inc, said a system issue prevented the opening auctions in a subset of its listed securities. The stocks began trading without an opening print, causing erroneous prices that the exchange said will be declared null and void.

Such events are extremely rare, and we are thoroughly examining the day39;s activity to assure the highest level of resilience in our systems, NYSE39;s Chief Operating Officer Michael Blaugrund said in a statement.

NYSE ended the day with a normal market close and expected a regular open on Wednesday, Blaugrund added.

A spreadsheet released by the exchange showed 251 affected securities.

The glitch the most recent in a series since the flash crash of 2010 impacted stocks of major companies including ExxonMobil, 3M, Verizon, McDonald39;s Corp, Wells Fargo and WalMart. The companies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

What appears to have happened is a technical glitch where all of my opening orders on the NYSE autocancelled even though some of them should have been fulfilled, said Dennis Dick, trader at Triple D Trading.

They have corrected that now, but this is going to be a big mess to…