Why India's biggest stock exchange had to shut
What's the story
Technical glitches are suddenly becoming a common affair in bourses. Previously, this month a glitch occurred in NASDAQ, which set Apple, Microsoft and other key stocks at a fixed rate. National Stock Exchange today suffered a major glitch, price quotations for individual stocks and indexes were not getting updated. Bombay Stock Exchange, however, was working fine during this period. Here's all about it.
NSE
How it started
The problem was noticed at around 9:20 am on Monday. After the market opened it was noticed that the NSE rates were not shifting in tandem with the BSE rates. This resulted in NSE stopping their trading in the futures & options segment. Around 10:05 am, Ravichandran, Interim Chief of NSE informed that they were trying their best to restart the market.
BSE
BSE was fine
Meanwhile, upon query, BSE CEO Ashish Chauhan replied that the Bombay exchange was not facing any technical glitch and trading took place as usual. NSE was supposed to restart its cash and F&O trading at 10:45 am again but they failed, as the technical glitch apparently didn't get solved. Authorities said they'll share the exact timing as soon as things would fall in place.
Cash Market segment
Don't go by appearances
NSE Cash Market segment pre-opened at 11:00 am, however, cash and futures & options segments markets, which was scheduled for an 11:15 am opening, didn't. The bourse said that the technical glitch has persisted and the opening of both Cash and F&O segment market got delayed. "Don't go by the 'neat' message, we are still working on the issue," said NSE.
Sebi
Market is now working
FinMin official informed that the government and SEBI have been made aware of the issue. Finally, at 11.59 am, NSE informed that the cash market segment will pre-open at 12:15 pm and end at 12:22-12:23 pm. "In F&O Segment - members shall be given 15 minutes window to cancel their outstanding orders. The cancellation window shall be available from 12:15 to 12:29 pm."
Fixed
Normalcy has returned
Normal trading finally began from 12.32 pm. The Nifty traded up 57.25 points or 0.59 percent at 9,723.05. It is not known yet if any major damage has occurred to the traders due to this disruption. Authorities should keep a strict vigilance to prevent this kind of hiccups, as they tend to wreak unnecessary havoc on the Dalal Street.
Amiss
Things have again gone amiss
Brokers are complaining that there is a huge difference in ask and bid price of NSE stocks. Dipan Mehta, Member BSE & NSE informed Moneycontrol, "The prices are not moving. Volumes are not increasing the way it should be on a day like this." NSE said that things are functioning properly. There is a display issue in the cash segment which is being fixed.