Trading resumed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) after technical issues delayed the opening bell on Friday morning.
Stocks in the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 indexes began trading an hour and 40 minutes later than the usual 8am start after the LSE said it had a “potential trading services issue”.
The outage affected hundreds of shares in some of the UK’s largest companies, including Shell, HSBC and Unilever, worth a total of £2.3tn.
The stock exchange handles about £5bn worth of trading each day.
The company said shares in smaller companies, such as those on junior market AIM market, continued to trade as normal.
Traders were frustrated by the latest outage coming during a hectic week on global financial markets, hit by worries about a US recession and the US-China trade dispute.
AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould said: “Investors would have been yearning for a quiet Friday after a week of turmoil for the markets driven by recession fears.”
A large number of market participants were also away on holiday, which may have limited the impact of the delay.
Paul Mumford, a fund manager at Cavendish Asset Management, said it would be a “major embarrassment” for the LSE amid stiffening competition, rising costs and greater regulation among exchange operators.
This outage comes after a significant technical issue in June 2018 which also saw trading delayed by an hour.
https://news.sky.com/story/trading-on-the-london-stock-exchange-has-been-delayed-by-technical-issue-11786373
