CME Group halted trading on its Globex electronic platform for four hours. The start of trade in all contracts on the Globex Markets platform, apart from Bursa Malaysia derivatives, was delayed because of technical problems. Taking into account growing trading volumes, the fallout of such technical glitches could be great. However, low activity of market participants at the time - early morning in Asia - and relatively calm weekend saved the situation.
“Clients hate it,” strategist at IG Ltd. Evan Lucas said. “They couldn’t increase or more importantly shut positions, but there is nothing you can do.”
“We do a lot of futures, especially CME commodities, so it did affect some of our clients but we did not receive a lot of complaints as the volume was thin,” said Jackson Wong, Hong Kong-based vice president at Tanrich Securities Co. “It would be a big deal if it happened during New York hours.”
In August 2013, Nasdaq OMX suffered a software-related outage on its exchange which resulted to a three-hour halt in trading. In June 2014, trading in Euribor and Eonia contracts on NYSE Liffe was suspended for almost hour hours due to technical issues. Traders called that day ‘unusually long’.