SGX Securities Market reopens after disruption

According to a report by OCBC, the yesterday’s closure was a technology issue affecting its trade confirmation processes. In July 2015, Bocker was replaced by Loh Boon Chye, the former head of Asia-Pacific global markets at Bank of America. It failed to follow through on two pledges to reopen during the afternoon. Our recovery time has to be better and we must minimize downtime for market participants.

The benchmark Straits Times Index climbed 0.6 percent at the close on Friday, tracking gains in Asian stocks. The stock gauge fell 0.1% on Thursday. Those mishaps led to a reprimand from the Monetary Authority of Singapore. In August previous year, derivatives trading was disrupted again due to a technical fault.

“All organizations have occasional technical glitches, the SGX is no different”, said Stefanie Yuen Thio, joint managing director at TSMP Law Corp.

This is not the first time trading has been halted at SGX. “Our exchange needs to revive the market”.

Trading stopped at 11:38 am (0338 GMT) due to a technical error, Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX) said on its website. SGX will devote “all necessary resources” and review the disruption, he said. “We’re badly affected, one minute means a lot to a high-frequency trader and it took SGX 30 minutes before it communicated there was something wrong”.

Investors who short their positions on Thursday will be waived of buy-in penalties, as the amount of short-selling seen on Thursday was “insignificant”, said Mr Loh.

“It’s unforeseen and nobody likes this”, said Melinda Sam, chief executive officer of the Securities Association of Singapore. “Some back offices worked through the night, and I’m sure SGX did as well”.

Singapore’s central bank rebuked the exchange, which a year ago said it would spend Sg$20 million ($15 million) to upgrade its technical infrastructure.

SGX said that orders could be put in, taken out or amended during the time when the market is closed.

“The issue is different from 2014”.

The events left some market participants confused and unhappy.

Singapore Exchange failed to resume trading after missing its self-imposed deadline today.

“Member reconciliation files are being generated and the securities market will not resume trading at 1400 hours”.

While Singapore is Asia’s leading venue for foreign exchange trading and has grown as a derivatives centre, the average daily value of shares traded on its exchange is less than the Thai bourse’s and trails far behind rivals in Hong Kong and Tokyo. Overall the exchange was dark for almost five hours of live trading, ultimately coming back online earlier today.

Concerns have been raised among the investing community that the frequent technical problems affect SGX’s reliability.