Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 19): Trading on the local stock exchange was halted in the last 15 minutes and some proprietary day traders, who scrambled to cover their short positions before the market closed at 5pm, might be affected.

The trading system stopped abruptly today — stock brokers discovered the glitch when orders could not be executed during the last quarter of the trading hour.

After the market close, Bursa Malaysia issued a statement notifying the investing public that it will not reopen the securities market for trading after the halt.

“The last traded price will be used as the reference price. The matter is currently being investigated. We will notify all relevant parties as soon as the issue has been resolved,” said the stock exchange.

Proprietary day traders are allowed to short sell without borrowed script, which is known as 'naked short selling'. However, they are required to cover all their short positions within the same trading day.  

In a separate statement last night, the exchange said trading will be resumed at 9am tomorrow, while it is still investigating the problem that caused the trading halt. “The exchange remains focused on ensuring there is minimal disruption to trading,” the statement said.

At press time, Bursa Malaysia has not released an update on its investigation.

This is not the first time the exchange system suffered a technical glitch this year.

On Aug 23, Bursa Malaysia said its FBM KLCI price feed experienced nearly an hour-long interruption, and resumed disseminating prices at 4:25pm that day.

The FBM KLCI was last traded down 3.39 points or 0.21% at 1,595.72. The market was moving in the range between 1,585.76 and 1,603.59 throughout the day.

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