The London Stock Exchange (LSE) saw small-cap trading halt twice this morning within a three-hour period, leaving only the FTSE 100, FTSE 250 and IOB securities remaining available for trading.
“The London Stock Exchange is currently investigating an issue impacting its trading and information system. We are undertaking immediate analysis and will provide further updates,” said the initial announcement.
An update was issued at 09.43am noting that: “Currently only FTSE 100, FTSE 250 and IOB securities are available for trading.”
Trading on the impacted instruments, believed to include the FTSE small-cap index, resumed shortly afterwards. “Instruments will go into auction at 09:55 with uncrossing beginning at 10:15. All live orders remain on the system,” said the group. By 10.17am, all impacted securities were back in regular trading.
“Order-driven securities moved into regular trading following the 10:15 auction as announced, updating the instrument status for these instruments accordingly,” said LSE.
SETSqx securities performed an auction uncrossing at 11:00 and subsequently moved back into their regular schedule. However, pure quote-driven securities status remained under investigation.Â
A second outage was subsequently reported at 11.23am, again leaving only the FTSE 100, FTSE 250 and IOB securities available for trading. Impacted instruments were resumed by 12.17pm, with order-driven securities entering into a re-opening auction at 12:20pm and uncrossing beginning at 12:40pm. By 12.43pm all impacted securities were back in regular trading.
READ MORE: Market outage at LSE sees AIM suspend tradingÂ
The issue follows a previous outage on 19 October this year, which saw trading in AIM suspended and the market close without an auction in the affected securities, due to a matching engine logic issue.
It is the latest in a series of incidents 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.
READ MORE: LSE outage caused by matching engine logic issue
