London Stock Exchange suffers first major trading blackout in seven years

www.telegraph.co.uk: Trading on the London Stock Exchange failed to start last morning after the opening auction was delayed in a rare disruption for one of the largest equity markets in the world.

A spokesman for the LSE blamed a “technical issue” for the one-hour delay with trading returning at 9 a.m.

LSE later said that trading was now operating as normal, but failed to provide a specific reason for its first major trading blackout in more than seven years.

The outage is likely to be the result of human error when attempting to add a patch to the trading platform or from “hidden vulnerabilities” in LSE’s complex layers of back-up systems, IT infrastructure company Continuity Software Chief Technology Officer Doron Pinhas explained. 

“A single human error or a single glitch would not have resulted in this full meltdown for one hour,” he added.

Pinhas warned that it is likely that LSE’s “back-ups did not kick in as planned”, and the outage pointed to a more “systemic vulnerability” on the exchange.

Technical glitches have also been blamed for previous outages with investors last left in limbo by a four-hour delay in trading in 2011, after the LSE switched from its Turquoise system to a new platform called MillenniumIT. The shutdown came on the new system’s 10th day of operation.

The exchange also suffered a huge outage in 2008 on one of the busiest days of trading of the year.

LSE, Europe’s largest trading venue, has also suffered problems in recent months with its regulatory news announcements which update investors with the latest financial results and company news. The exchange has been without a permanent chief executive since Xavier Rolet left in November following a boardroom bust-up. David Schwimmer from Goldman Sachs will take the helm in August.