Date 9/9/99 Fails To Fluster Asian, Europe Markets

Updated 11:33 AM ET September 9, 1999

By Neil Winton

LONDON (Reuters) - Computer systems in Asia and Europe appeared to be functioning normally Thursday, with no fallout apparent from the theoretical 9/9/99 glitch, though some experts said any problems might only show up later.

Banks and financial institutions, more vulnerable to computer or power system malfunctions than many industrial sectors, reported business as usual.

Concerns over September 9, 1999 arose from an old programming convention that used four nines in a row -- 9999 -- to tell computers to stop processing data or to perform a special task.

Some thought that 9/9/99 might be a precursor to the Y2K or millennium bug, which could strike on January 1, 2000. Early computer programs abbreviated years to two digits and may be confused by 2000, misreading it as 1900 and resulting in shutdowns or erroneous data.

New Zealand and Australia, which saw the first dawning of September 9, indicated a 9/9/99 non-event. The rest of Asia and Europe seemed to follow suit.

Bankers in London reported business as usual.

"We've had people working throughout the night and we've had nothing reported this morning," Nigel Shore, Y2K program manager at Merrill Lynch in London, told Reuters Television.

9/9/99 PROBLEMS MIGHT BE STORED UP

Computer experts say that any problems arising from 9/9/99 might not be apparent immediately, but could be storing up problems in the weeks ahead. Four nines was used to give an "end of batch" command to stop accumulating data, so information that should be building up for later use might not be available when needed.

Merrill Lynch was planning continuing scrutiny of its systems.

"We're not being complacent here. We've got our command and information centers up and running and we've got our control centers here too, so we will be monitoring the situation today and in coming days. We are using this (9/9/99) as a dress rehearsal," Shore said.

Deutsche Bank AG also reported problem-free trading.

"It's been a really good nine nine nine nine. Our trading floor is live with activity. It's been a successful day's trading. Our trading floors in Singapore in Tokyo in Frankfurt and Hong Kong are all throbbing with activity. There's been no problems so that's good news," Ian Orr, global program director, Year 2000, at Deutsche Bank, told Reuters Television.

Ian Hugo, assistant director of Y2K pressure group Taskforce 2000, said the nature of Y2K and 9/9/99 problems were being misunderstood. They were more likely to generate many minor aberrations which could build into big ones later.

ANOTHER REASON TO FEAR DECEMBER 31, 1999

Hugo also said that December 31, 1999 might also generate problems on top of the computer bug itself. Often programmers used this date in software meant to run indefinitely. Computer software would often require a section to be filled describing the date of expiry even if it was meant to run constantly. December 31, 1999 has for years often been used in this context.

But 9/9/99 did generate some action in superstitious parts of Asia.

"The nines are considered a very lucky number in Asia and a lot of pregnant women are walking into hospitals and demanding Caesarian sections so that their babies can be born today," Phil Smith, Reuters correspondent in Singapore told the program.

"Also there've been an awful lot of marriages taking place today," Smith said.

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I wonder if this guy has checked the Crude Oil market lately ??

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), September 09, 1999