System glitch delays Toronto Stock Exchange open twice

 Nasdaq hits 5,000 for the first time

By JOHN McHUTCHION

CANOE Money

Technology programs plagued the Toronto Stock Exchange this morning, twice delaying the market's regularly scheduled 9:30 a.m. EST open before Canada's largest stock market finally opened just after 10:30 a.m.

In a brief statement, the TSE said it detected a problem during the opening market process this morning, and that the TSE would open at 10 a.m. The exchange said corrections have been made, but the TSE made another announcement later saying the markets would open at 10:30 a.m.

The delays marks the third time in three weeks that technology problems have hit the TSE.

At the start of trading on February 18, traders had trouble getting confirmations of their transactions, meaning they were essentially flying blind.

A big volume of shares, futures and options trying to get through the market at once resulted in the computerized confirmation delays.

On February 21, the exchange suspended trading two minutes early after the discovery that some trades were not going through. The after-hours trading session was also cancelled.

Brokerages pointed to the Toronto Stock Exchange's 20-plus-year-old computerized trading system as partly to blame for recent technological problems that have plagued the market.

Meanwhile, the technology-laden Nasdaq exchange broke 5,000 this morning for the first time ever.

http://www.canoe.ca/MoneyNews/mar7_tsedelayedopen.html

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), March 07, 2000

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TORONTO, March 7 (Reuters) - The Toronto Stock Exchange, Canada's largest bourse, delayed the opening of trading until 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday after detecting systems problems, leaving traders infuriated. Traders were fuming, but the more than 200 Canadian stocks that are interlisted on U.S. markets kept some of them busy.

"You can't trade, it's 10:30, we should be trading. It sucks," said David Jarvis, a liability trader at National Bank Financial. "They can't handle the volumes."

Jarvis said the TSE has proved itself unreliable in the past and Tuesday's glitch comes as no surprise.

"It's frustrating," said Peter Chandler, vice-president and director at Canaccord Capital Corp.

"You have this huge volume in penny stocks. Many are ex-resource companies that are being reconfigured into dot-coms. The volumes are stretching the system to the max right now," he added.

This is at least the third system problem to crop up this year. Unprecedented volumes at the opening bell wreaked havoc on the exchange's reporting systems on February 18. And on February 22, the TSE, which introduced the world's first computerized trading system in 1977, had to halt trading two minutes early when orders overran its order management system.

Investor infatuation with penny stocks was cited as one reason for heavy volumes, which strained the automatic routing system that allows members to fill and confirm orders.

The exchange initially said it planned to open at 10 a.m. (1500 GMT) "to allow for an orderly market opening" but then extended the delay until 10:30 a.m. (1530 GMT).

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), March 07, 2000.

(Here's a history of TSE's failures dating back to 1991. The most recent glitch is attributed to the routing system)

Trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange was shut down twice

Updated: Tue, Mar 07 06:00 PM EST

Tuesday: A glitch in the TSE's order management system - an automatic routing system that helps to fill and confirm orders - forced the exchange to open at 10:30 a.m. EST instead of 9:30. A problem later in the day forced a shutdown between 1:17 and 2:55 p.m.

Feb. 21, 2000: TSE officials shut down all trading at 3:58 p.m., two minutes early, after noticing some brokerage houses could not buy or sell shares because of a technical problem.

Feb. 18, 2000: Computer problems delayed trade confirmations for the first half-hour of trading. April 5, 1999: Computer system failed for 2.5 hours, stopping at 10:45 a.m. and resuming at 1:15 p.m.

March 19, 1998: TSE system failed for 14 minutes; TSE president called it embarrassing.

April 1 and 2, 1997: TSE computer system crashed two days in a row under the weight of sell orders for Bre-X Minerals as allegations of fraud at the gold exploration company surfaced. Much of Bre-X trading shifted to Nasdaq and the Montreal and Alberta exchanges.

Jan. 9, 1991: Computer crash halted trading for half an hour as U.S- Iraqi talks on the Persian Gulf crisis broke up.

Milestone: TSE closed its trading floor and converted to all-computer trading in mid-April 1997.

Crash cause: The latest problem comes as the TSE is replacing its 23- year-old computer-assisted trading system, known as CATS, with new technology.

Source: Excite News

http://news.excite.ca/news/ap/000307/18/tse-quicklist

-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), March 08, 2000.

Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?

Would TSE's faulty new system upgrade create a routing problem or vice versa?

-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), March 08, 2000.