The Australian share market remained closed for the rest of today after a technical outage this morning caused issues with share prices soon after opening.
The local market got off to a strong start with all sectors higher, led by real estate firms, miners, banks and oil stocks, but the Australian Securities Exchange announced that trading had been paused shortly after opening at 10:24am AEDT because of "market data issues".
At 2:58pm AEDT, the ASX said the underlying cause of the problem had been identified but trading would not restart until tomorrow. "ASX equity markets will not open for the remainder of today. The underlying cause of the issue has been identified and a resolution path is in place to allow trading to commence before tomorrow at 10am (AEDT)," the ASX said.
Some users were not happy. Twitter user Mo wrote, "Just admit it. You've been hacked." Another user helpfully suggested, "Turn it off & on again."
I was happy because BHP was up 2% and so were all four banks. Let's hope the music will not stop tomorrow.
P.S. Had a quick look at Chi-X, which is Australia's alternative market operator and which stayed open throughout the day, and where BHP closed at $36.10, down 39 cents from today's ASX "closing price".
P.P.S. ... and at 5 pm: "Service Update (17:00 AEDT): The ASX has confirmed that the market will open again tomorrow at 10:00 AEDT. Due to the prolonged ASX outage on Monday, the market is likely to be busier than usual on Tuesday, which may result in delays to the processing of orders. Please be patient as we work through the backlog with the ASX, which may require us to review orders under our obligation to maintain a fair and orderly market. In the interim, we suggest that you review any open orders prior to market open (select "Trading" and then "Manage orders"). Please be aware that we're currently unable to cancel or change orders over the phone or email."
P.P.P.S. ... next morning: Wall Street is up 400 points, or 1.4%, and BHP on the NYSE overnight closed 1.76% higher, so there ought to be no nasty surprises when the ASX re-opens at 10 am.
