Within minutes after opening for trading, the London Stock Exchange (LSE) was shut down for nearly three hour and forty five minutes due to technical problems, which LSE called as “market data issue”.
LSE had only 10 days back migrated to the new Millennium plantform and today’s technical problem may directly relates to the new system that was introduced on February 14.
A LSE spokesperson said that at 8.03 am (local time), trading was paused briefly and was completely halted at 8.33 am to until 12.15 pm. The problem has since been resolved and normal trading has resumed, an LSE press officer said.
However no explanations were offered on the problem and no estimates were available on losses suffered by investors on account of this technical glitch. Traders said they were unable to react to the upheaval in Libya, (leading to changes in crude oil prices) and also poor economic performance of the domestic economy.
The average traded value on LSE is currently around £4.9 billion and the exchange is open for business for 8 and half hours starting at 8 in the morning.
On February 14 when the new Millennium system was introduced LSE said that it is a highly scalable, multi-asset class trading platform, offering the clients superior technical performance, ultra low-latency and enhanced functionality. The new system was developed by MillenniumIT, a Sri Lankan company owned by LSE, which it had bought in October 2009.
Commenting on the disruption, Xavier Rolet, CEO of the London Stock Exchange Group, said:”We sincerely regret the inconvenience that today’s disruption to trading has caused our customers. We have resolved the real time data dissemination issue and our UK cash equity markets have now resumed trading.”