Technical breakdown halts DSE
A technical breakdown halted trade on the Dhaka Stock Exchange for almost four hours yesterday, and the regulator asked the premier bourse to submit a report on it.
“We asked them to explain why and how the malfunction took place yesterday,” said Saifur Rahman, spokesman and an executive director of Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission.
“DSE informed us about the matter from time to time,” said Rahman, adding that the commission will take the next course of action after getting the report.
Trading resumed at 2:20pm, 10 minutes before the regular closing time, and continued until 4:00pm. The share transactions usually take place between 10:30am and 2:30pm on every working day.
The problem arose after the bourse's main engine failed to process the trading information uploaded by TREC (trading right entitlement certificate) to start the trading, officials said.
The TREC holders are required to upload information on their clients and portfolios everyday prior to the beginning of share transactions, they said.
“After discussing with the regulator we decided to keep the stock trading close until recovering the malfunctioning,” Swapan Kumar Bala, managing director of the DSE, told reporters.
The IT professionals in assistance with NASDAQ OMX, which provided the matching engine, could solve the errors by 2:10pm, he said.
However, a DSE official said, the reasons for the malfunctioning are yet to be identified and it may take some days.
The DSE at a cost of around Tk 35 crore introduced the new and fast automated trading system in December last year to ensure smooth share transactions.
After yesterday's incident, stockbrokers expressed their dissatisfaction, as it was previously said by the management that the new system will ensure a flawless trading.
“But within six months we saw the problem that suspended the trading for almost four hours,” said a stockbroker seeking anonymity.
This is not the first time for them, such technical glitches happened many times in the bourse with the previous trading engine.Meanwhile, stocks finished almost flat. DSEX, the benchmark general index of the DSE, rose only 1.34 points or 0.02 percent to finish the day at 4,484.62 points.
As trading time was slashed by 2 hours and 20 minutes for the technical issues, turnover plunged 56 percent to Tk 343.18 crore on transactions of 8.58 crore shares and mutual fund units.
“Reduced trade hours impacted the overall market participation and turnover,” IDLC Investments said in its regular market analysis.
Losers beat gainers 136 to 133, with 31 securities remaining unchanged on the premier bourse.
Khulna Power Company dominated the turnover chart with 35.08 lakh shares worth Tk 25.24 crore changing hands, followed by Saif Powertech, Summit Alliance Port, Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company and United Power Generation and Distribution Company.
Power Grid Company of Bangladesh was the day's best performer, advancing 9.84 percent, while Family Tex was the worst loser, slumping 15.16 percent.
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