Stock market glitches wreak havoc on newspaper deadlines

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) continues to experience technical glitches in its new trading system (NTS) which replaced the MakTrade system introduced in 1993 shortly after the PSE was created to unify the country’s two bourses.

The PSE has been having a difficult time uploading stock market quotations on its website since the new system was implemented last Monday.

Due to the technical glitch, stock market quotations are not uploaded promptly, wreaking havoc on local newspapers’ deadlines. The business section of broadsheets print the results of stock market trading on a daily basis to serve the need of the investing public. As of presstime, the PSE has yet to come out with its quotation report.

Newly-elected PSE president Val Suarez said that just like any new technology system, “the bourse’s migration to a new trading system had its birth pains and glitches deemed minor” by its team.

Conrado Bate, president of leading online brokerage house CitisecOnline, said the new system would really take some time getting used to but it would ultimately be beneficial to the exchange.

Suarez said the new trading system was designed to enable trade on a wide range of cash, debt and derivative instruments which was not possible on the former electronic platform.

He said the NTS project has been a work- in-progress for the past two years in order to meet the demands of trading participants and the investing public. “We are proud that PSE can now compete with the best exchanges around the world,” Suarez said.

The new system uses a trading software product developed by the NYSE Technologies SAS, the commercial technology unit of NYSE Euronext which operates the New York Stock Exchange.

The launch of the new system last Monday was met with a technical glitch, which brokers blamed as the reason for the market’s anemic trading volume. Because of the glitch, the exchange feed showed that the main index had surged 15.3 percent to a record high of 3,937.39 points. The wrong reading stayed in place during the entire trading session, which lasted two and a half hours.

The start of the new system was originally set in October 2009 but was postponed as the PSE grappled with a host of technical and regulatory issues.

“The PSE regrets the delay in issuing the quotation report as we are carefully reconciling data from the new trading system for the protection of investors and other stakeholders,” said Susan L. Serad, Philippine Stock Exchange Chief Technology Officer.