NZX trading suspended over technical hitch

NZX is investigating internal issues that have suspended trading for most of the day. 

Reuters sent out an alert to clients that NZX equities and indices data wasn't updating due to an issue at the exchange, affecting all vendors. The alert doesn't have an estimated time for the problem to be fixed. The market has been in an enquiry stage, with no live trading since the outage at 11.15am. 

NZX chief financial officer Graham Law said an "internal operational issue" caused the initial problem. However, once that was fixed another problem occurred causing further delays. There was no problem with the Nasdaq trading system, he said in an emailed statement. 

"The exchange has been in regular contact with market participants throughout the period," Law said. "NZX's current focus is on recommencing trading as soon as possible."

The stock market operator introduced the Nasdaq platform in 2014, letting it branch into new securities trading such as derivatives and commodities. The platform has faced intermittent issues, most recently with an outage last year. 

Grant Williamson, a director at Hamilton Hindin Greene, said NZX's system has been reasonably stable and that no entity is immune from technical problems.

He said trading had been quiet before the outage. Orders can still be placed during the enquiry stage. 

"Dual-listed stocks are still moving over in Australia, so when the market opens there could be reasonable price movement," he said. 

Among those companies, a2 Milk Co gained 1.5 percent to A$11.35 on the ASX, Fletcher Building rose 0.6 percent to A$5.835, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare advanced 0.6 percent to A$14.74, SkyCity Entertainment Group slipped 0.5 percent to A$3.86 and Spark New Zealand rose 0.7 percent to A$3.555. 

NZX is spending more time on its core market function, putting it at the heart of a strategic overhaul last year. That includes a new pricing structure set to start in October. 

The benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index edged up 0.1 percent to 9,214.02 before the glitch stopped trading on turnover of $16.5 million. 

(BusinessDesk)

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