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Glitch in system likely reason for early KLCI dip

Source: Business Times

Publication date: 2000-08-02

A GLITCH in the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange's automated trading system near closing time on Monday might well be the explanation for the extraordinary kink in the charts early in the session yesterday. Some dealers contacted by Business Times said they were not able to execute sell orders during the last 20 minutes of trading on Monday, and only did so as soon as the stock market opened yesterday.

And this could have caused the benchmark Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange Composite Index (KLCI) to fall 4.46 points in the first 15 minutes of trading to the day's low of 794.98, before steadily recovering to close at 804.59 on bargain-hunting and support from local institutions.

"The dip was probably due to position leftovers, or orders that were not completed the day before...they were done first thing (yesterday)," a dealer said.

"We couldn't key in our orders, but the quotes were still moving. That means some brokers were okay," he said.

About five or six of the bigger stockbroking houses contacted have reported the same problem, the dealer claimed.

Another dealer said the glitch was not confined to the Klang Valley, as problems were also reported by stockbrokers in Terengganu.

Yet another dealer said the situation at his company was not too bad as the delay lasted only 5-10 minutes.

"There was some jamming for a while...we couldn't put the orders through, but by the end of the day the orders were cleared," the dealer said.

When contacted, Securities Automated Network Services Sdn Bhd (SCANS), which operates the KLSE traiding system, said it had received complaints.

"We don't know what happened yet. The problem lasted for 20 minutes. We will reply to all brokers after we find out what happened," said an official on the SCANS Help Desk.

The last time the KLSE trading system went on the blink was on June 26 when a whole morning's trading session was disrupted.

It was estimated to have cost brokers RM10 million in forgone brokerage fees.

Apex Healthcare Bhd, which made its debut on the Second Board on that day, had also to wait until the afternoon to see its shares traded for the first time.

http://realcities.newsreal.com/pages/realcities/Story.nsp?story_id=12523074&site=charlotte&ID=realcities&scategory=Business+and+Finance

-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), August 02, 2000