Starting 10:15am on Wednesday, the Nifty 50 index has been stuck at 14,820, 113 points higher from previous day’s close and Nifty Bank remained at 35,626.60, up 1.45 per cent. Trading was halted on NSE across brokers after technical glitches as live price quotes of spot Nifty, Bank Nifty indexes and others failed to update.
Meanwhile, the live price quotes of Sensex were operating normally. The live price quotes of all the 11 sector gauges compiled by the NSE was also not updating. The NSE operates through multiple telecom links with two service providers.
Both the telecom service providers confirmed that there were issues with their links due to which there is an impact on NSE system. By 11:40 a.m., the world’s biggest derivatives bourse halted all trading.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has sought a report from the National Stock Exchange (NSE) on shutdown of trading at the exchange on Wednesday. The NSE may submit a preliminary report by Friday.
When NSE’s engineers found that their lease-line data pipes weren’t transferring, they decided that systems need to restart, according to a report by Bloomberg. Both service providers, Bharti Airtel and Tata Communications, went down at the same time.
About an hour later, the NSE called a halt to trading in its cash and derivatives segments, citing “issues with the links with telecom service providers.” It didn’t offer an estimated time of resumption.
Technical glitches have disrupted trading at several stock exchanges in the Asia Pacific region in recent months. In October, a hardware issue forced an unprecedented all-day halt on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Australia’s stock exchange opened for less than half an hour on November 16 before a software issue forced it to close for the rest of the session.
Wednesday’s disruption revived memories of an episode in July 2017, when the NSE shut both the cash and derivatives segments due to technical issues, with traders unable to execute trades at its venue and prices not updating. Trading was later restarted after keeping traders on tenterhooks for about three hours with conflicting messages about what time operations would resume.
NSE has been planning an initial public offering since 2016, which was delayed after it was embroiled in a probe into whether it allowed preferential access to some high-frequency traders. The NSE has since closed the loophole, regulator Sebi said in an order in 2019 while imposing a fine.
Source: News18