Tokyo Stock Exchange Sets Restart After Daylong Shutdown
October 01 2020 - 8:55AM
Dow Jones News
By Suryatapa Bhattacharya and Chieko Tsuneoka
TOKYO -- The Tokyo Stock Exchange said it would resume normal
trading Friday after an unprecedented all-day shutdown Thursday
that executives blamed on a malfunctioning computer part.
"I keenly feel my responsibility as someone overseeing markets,"
said Koichiro Miyahara, chief executive of the stock exchange,
which is operated by Japan Exchange Group Inc. "We will conduct an
exhaustive examination into the cause."
The exchange's chief information officer, Ryusuke Yokoyama, said
the machines involved weren't connected to the outside and there
was no evidence of hacking.
At 7:04 a.m. Thursday Tokyo time, a magnetic-disk device used to
store trading information malfunctioned, and a switchover to a
backup device didn't work, the exchange said. That left it unable
to transmit price information properly.
Officials said a quicker resumption of trading might have been
possible by restarting the system, but they feared disruption if
accumulated orders suddenly flooded the market. They said it was
safer to call off the entire day of trading Thursday, cancel orders
that had been waiting before the market opened and make a fresh
start Friday.
Assuming Friday's trading proceeds as planned, market
participants said they didn't expect long-term disruption to the
market, but the shutdown was an embarrassment for a financial
capital that has been looking to play a bigger role in Asian
markets as concerns grow about Hong Kong's future.
At a news conference, Mr. Miyahara, the exchange CEO, was asked
about the slogan of "Never stop" that the exchange and technology
provider Fujitsu Ltd. had promoted when introducing upgrades in
2015. In response, he repeated an apology for causing market
participants trouble. A Fujitsu spokesman referred questions to the
Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Thursday's problem marked the first time an entire day of stock
trading was halted in Tokyo since the exchange moved to a fully
computerized trading system in 1999.
It led to some unusual scenes. Displays at the exchange, which
typically processes more than a billion shares a day, showed zero
volume for all market segments. Newspaper stock charts consisted
simply of a series of dashes in place of prices.
The Osaka stock exchange remained open, and futures prices tied
to the benchmark Nikkei stock index were up, suggesting traders
didn't foresee a major disruption.
"It is good to see that emotions are not taking over for the
broader markets," said Takeo Kamai, head of execution services at
CLSA in Tokyo.
Write to Suryatapa Bhattacharya at
Suryatapa.Bhattacharya@wsj.com and Chieko Tsuneoka at
chieko.Tsuneoka@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 01, 2020 08:40 ET (12:40 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.