“You’ve got one job”: Investors wants answer on London Stock Exchange outage
Investors are looking for a “quick answer” today after the London Stock Exchange was hit by a technical incident which halted trading in hundreds of smaller stocks on Thursday.
Normal trading has resumed on the bourse this morning after trading at the smaller end of the market was curbed by the incident yesterday, although bigger blue-chip shares on the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 indices suffered no interruptions.
LSEG data reported by Reuters showed trading halts had affected smaller shares including food delivery app Deliveroo and online fashion retailer ASOS among others.
The incident marks the first time trading on the LSE had been interrupted since 2019, with analysts warning it could strike a blow to the bourse’s credibility without a fast explanation.
“(The incident) will catch the attention of investors, people will want to have a quick answer to what was going on in order to maintain confidence,” Fiona Cincotta, senior markets analyst at City Index, said.
“The quicker we can get some news on what caused the incident, the quicker the market will be able to move on,” she said. “We may see a little bit of volatility at the open tomorrow [Friday].”
LSEG did not offer any details on the incident in its statement and said it had no further comment when contacted by Reuters. The London Stock Exchange did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In 2019, the London Stock Exchange suffered an almost two-hour outage that hit FTSE 100 and midcap stocks, which LSEG said was caused by a “technical software issue”.
Thursday’s incident happened on a busy day in the corporate earnings season. LSEG’s own shares, which are listed on the FTSE 100, traded regularly, and closed up 1.88 per cent following the release of its results earlier in the day.
“For a stock exchange, you have one job and that’s to keep your market going. And when these outages do occur, it doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence,” David Morrison, a market strategist at retail broker Trade Nation, said.
The incident struck a blow to the LSE just as its parent group posted a bullish outlook for the year at the top end of its guidance.
The London Stock Exchange Group said it was on track to hit the top end of its forecasts for the year after income ticked up over the summer despite a slump at its flagship exchange.
LSEG said its total income had jumped eight per cent in the three quarters to the end of September.
Additional reporting by Reuters