Australian bourse halts trading in longest outage in decade

[SYDNEY] Australia's stock exchange opened for less than half an hour before a software issue forced it to close for the rest of Monday's session, marring the debut day for an updated trading system.

ASX Ltd and its technology provider Nasdaq have identified the cause of the problem and will fix it overnight so the market can re-open at 10am on Tuesday, the exchange said in a statement.

It's the longest shutdown in well over a decade for the exchange and came on the day a refreshed trading system for the ASX's equity market went live, despite more than a year of testing. ASX Managing Director Dominic Stevens apologised for the disruption, saying it "fell short of the high standards we set ourselves." The Australian Securities and Investments Commission said it had significant concerns and would determine whether the ASX had met its license obligations.

The S&P/ASX 200 Index was up 1.2 per cent before trading was suspended at 10:24am.

"We are aiming to be an international financial centre and this hurts our global reputation," said John Athanasiou, chief executive officer at Red Leaf Securities in Sydney. "Bull or bear market, there is never a good time for the bourse to go down." The nation's benchmark stock measure is down about 3% 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 software issue was limited to the trading of multiple securities in a single order, or combination trading, and created inaccurate market data, according to the statement.

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 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 NV 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 Pty Ltd said trading of ASX-listed securities remained open through its venue on Monday, according to its website.

BLOOMBERG