European lawmakers called for major restrictions on rapid-fire trading on Wednesday, voting to force trading venues and exchanges to impose a minimum half-second delay on executing orders in a bid to temper excessive market volatility.

The vote, by the European Parliament's economics and monetary affairs committee, is the latest sign of growing regulatory concern about high-frequency trading, in which firms send waves of buy and sell orders into the market often based on pre-programmed algorithms. It won cross-party support.