Glitches, shutdowns at bourses in India and Indonesia result in an unhappy Monday

Mumbai

ASIA'S stock exchanges have had smoother starts to a week.

India's National Stock Exchange (NSE), the country's biggest bourse, suffered its longest-ever halt on Monday after an unidentified glitch disrupted orders and price feeds, forcing the operator to freeze all equities and derivatives trading. Indonesia was also hit with a data issue and responded with its own shutdown. In both cases, brokers said that confusion reigned even after the venues had announced the suspensions.

It all added up to an unhappy Monday, with volume in Indonesia hitting its lowest level in a year while the benchmark index fell 0.7 per cent.

India's NSE, already under pressure from an investigation into its practices toward high-speed trading, and with a proposed initial public offering seemingly in limbo, tried and failed to reopen its markets at least…