The London Stock Exchange suffered a second embarrassing system glitch in a week today when UK share trading failed to start on time, angering clients keen to trade because of tension in Libya.
The UK exchange, which has been working hard to update its trading systems in recent years, did not start trading as planned at 8am and opened instead at 12.15om, with the LSE blaming a technical glitch.
The outage came just four days after the LSE-owned Italian market Borsa Italiana failed to open on February. 22, and was down until mid-afternoon at the start of a week in which firms needed to trade because of events in Libya.
London's FTSE 100 had lost 2.7% in the previous five sessions on growing concerns that the unrest in Libya could spread to other oil-producing countries including Saudi Arabia, but European shares rebounded this morning.
Today's outage is a blow for the LSE as it has been moving its various trading systems to a new technology platform in the past six months, and 10 days ago moved its main UK share trading service Sets onto the Millennium system.
LSE spokesman Alastair Fairbrother said it was not clear whether the new system had caused the problem on Friday. 'We can't say what's causing the problem or if it's to do with the implementation of, or the migration to, the new system,' he said.
The last serious trading halt was a three and a half hour stoppage in November 2009.
Equity traders were unable to react to data showing a surprisingly large drop in fourth-quarter GDP, which prompted a fall in sterling and a rise in gilts, while there have been sharp moves in recent days caused by developments in North Africa.
