Tech & Biz

London Stock Exchange trading down due to computer crash

by Terri Potratz | September 8, 2008 at 11:44 am

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The world's second largest stock exchange is enduring an extended derailment today due to a computer crash. A glitch in the London Stock Exchange computer system at 8:44am this morning has resulted in the longest blackout at the LSE in over 8 years.

In an embarrassment for the LSE, the exchange said that no orders can be entered or executions of those trades occur. The LSE plans to bring back trading in a “controlled way’’, but couldn't say how long that will take.

The timing is expecially bad, as the costly error fell hot on the heels of the US government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage lenders and today would have been one of the busier trading days of the year.

The meltdown could not have happened at a worse time for the LSE, which is battling a slew of new rivals who are offering ultra-fast trading systems and low fees. One competitor, Chi-X, was quick to pounce on the debacle, with Peter Randall, chief executive, likening it to the opening of Heathrow airport’s Terminal 5.

The outage happened just after 9am and trading did not resume until 4pm, by which time many traders had given up and gone home. A total of 1.3bn shares changed hands across the London market on Monday – less than half of Friday’s total and well below the daily average.

The specific cause of the computer malfunction is not yet known.

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Anonnymous (not verified)

at 12:10 on September 8th, 2008

Is it hardware, operating system or software related? If it's the OS maybe that'll teach 'em for going with Linux and crowing about it - http://tinyurl.com/62qfvh .