A market outage today is believed to have left some securities suspended from trading, along with AIM. Only the FTSE 100, FTSE 250 and IOB securities are currently trading as normal.Â
The London Stock Exchange is currently experiencing what is believed to be a market outage. The issue, which was reported at 3.26pm, has resulted in the suspension of trading on parts of the exchange.
“The London Stock Exchange is currently investigating an incident. Â Currently only FTSE 100, FTSE 250 and IOB securities are available for trading,” said LSEG on its live systems update. “Orders in all other instruments currently halted will now be expired.”
LSEG declined to comment further when contacted by BEST EXECUTION.
The incident is the latest in a series of market outages that have plagued exchanges across the globe: including a three-hour outage at SIX Swiss Exchange in June, and an outage that saw Nasdaq’s Nordic markets close without an auction in November 2022.
The issue may revive demands for alternative mechanisms to cope with market outages. Earlier this year Optiver issued an industry-wide call to action to protect the close from similar incidents, while in May 2023 ESMA issued an Opinion on market outages, in which it highlighted the importance for trading venues of having an appropriate outage plan.
UPDATE: London Stock Exchange confirmed at 4.10 that there would be no further continuous trading in affected securities. The market closed without an auction in the affected securities.
“FTSE 100, FTSE 250 and IOB securities closed as normal. Orders in all other instruments have been expired back to users,” said the exchange.
“It can be frustrating on an outage when you don’t know when the market will come up again,” said one trader, speaking to BEST EXECUTION on condition of anonymity. “Especially if you have positions that need to be traded out of.”
©Markets Media Europe 2023
