Sebi, exchanges in talk over NYSE trading halt

Stock exchanges and market regulator, Sebi, have been in talks after a computer glitch halted trading for over three hours in the NYSE on Wednesday. Officials said that the halt in trade, one of the most serious ones in the last two years, had made the regulator cautious given the current volatility in the market.

"Since yesterday night we have been discussing with each other. Currently our understanding is that it was a software upgrade which created certain issues," said Ashishkumar Chauhan, MD & CEO of BSE adding that further course of action would depend on the final findings of the enquiry into the trading outage.

An email sent to Sebi remained unanswered. NSE could not be reached for comment either. A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Stock Exchange said that the exchange had not received any communication from the regulator nor had it approached Sebi with any queries.

As per reports, trading came to a halt on the NYSE after certain glitches were observed following a software upgrade. NYSE officials are said to have immediately shutdown trading to avoid further complications. Trading recommenced at around 3 pm and ended as usual at 4 pm in New York.

The outage seen on Wednesday is the largest such outage to hit the US markets since August 2013 when the Nasdaq Stock Market shutdown trading on account of a broken price feed. The trading glitch comes at a time when global markets are at their volatile best. Greece, having defaulted on its payments, could see an ouster from the European Union. Chinese markets are in a rout, declining over 30 per cent in the past one-month forcing its government to intervene to stem the selling pressure. The US economy seems to be on the path of recover but global events could cause a dent in its progress, worry experts.

Indian markets have also been volatile on worries of weak corporate earnings growth and on cues from the global market.

"This could basically happen to any exchange because the systems are very complex and each component is very difficult to integrate into each other. Anything going wrong in any one of the areas could bring the exchange (platform) down. We do sympathise with what has happened and we have lessons to learn from that," said Chauhan.