Regulators and exchanges are getting closer to a framework for a “kill switch” that could be used to shut down trading before software glitches get out of control and wreak havoc on markets, a top exchange official said yesterday.

“We have all engaged in a much more detailed assessment of how a kill switch could work,” Joe Mecane, an executive vice president at the New York Stock Exchange, told a Senate Banking panel. “I think we are hopeful to have something to report in the first quarter of next year.”