Australia stock market closes 24 minutes from open in longest outage in decade
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There was no immediate suggestion of a cyberattack.
PHOTO: REUTERS
SYDNEY (BLOOMBERG) - Australia's stock exchange opened for less than half an hour before a data issue forced it to close for the rest of Monday's (Nov 16) session, marring the debut day for an updated trading system.
ASX and its technology provider Nasdaq have identified the cause and a plan to fix it, the exchange said in an emailed statement. "A software issue limited to the trading of multiple securities in a single order (combination trading) created inaccurate market data," it said.
This is the longest shutdown in well over a decade for the exchange.
ASX said the issue will be resolved overnight with the market re-opening at 10am on Tuesday, adding that Monday was the "go-live" day for the refreshed trading system for ASX's equity market after over a year of testing.
"We are aiming to be an international financial center and this hurts our global reputation," said John Athanasiou, chief executive officer at Red Leaf Securities. "Bull or bear market, there is never a good time for the bourse to go down."
The S&P/ASX 200 Index was up 1.2 per cent before trading was suspended at 10:24am.
The benchmark stock measure is down about 3 per cent this year and is a few hundred points shy of its all-time record. Regional benchmark MSCI Asia Pacific Index is set for a record high today, boosted by a free-trade agreement between Asian nations.
The outage came as other global exchanges have faced disruptions this year. Trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's cash equity market was halted for an entire day on Oct 1, an unprecedented shutdown. The failure that was caused by a botched switchover to a backup unit following a memory failure in its trading system.
New Zealand's stock market was forced to halt trading over four days in August after distributed-denial-of-service attacks overwhelmed its website. Trading in all stocks and derivatives on Euronext markets was shut down for three hours in late October, affecting activity in countries including France and Belgium. The problem was traced to due to a software issue.
Australia's exchange has also experienced glitches in the past. A hardware failure in the ASX's trading systems triggered a delayed market open and an early closure in September 2016. In October 2011, trading was halted for almost four hours by a technical disruption just before the open.
Competing exchange operator Chi-X Australia said trading of ASX-listed securities remained open through its venue on Monday, according to its website.