Philippine Stock Exchange cancels trading after technical glitch

MANILA, Philippines (Update 2, 1:51 p.m.) — Trading at the Philippine Stock Exchange was cancelled Tuesday due to a technical problem that affected dozens of brokers.

In an advisory, the local bourse operator said the trading halt was "due to a technical issue that is currently being resolved." The Exchange did not say when trading would resume.

The decision not to open for the rest of the day was taken around afternoon. The trading floor was supposed to open at 9:30 a.m. but Bloomberg reported that the PSE sent an advisory on delayed pre-open at 9:10 a.m.

The PSE said there were problems “in establishing connection between the NASDAQ trading engine and the Flextrade front-end system.” As a result, 43 out of 124 brokers were unable to connect to the Exchange’s trading engine.

“PSE continues to work and coordinate closely with representatives of NASDAQ and Flextrade to identify the underlying cause of the above-described production issue and come up with the appropriate solution,” PSE President Ramon Monzon said.

Current rules state that the PSE may stop the trading in the market if at least one-third of the trading participant-users cannot access the trading system.

It is the first significant glitch to hit the PSE in recent years. On April 8, 2016, the PSE was hit by a 40-minute trading halt because of a technical problem.

For Luis Limlingan of Regina Capital, Tuesday's glitch was not likely to have a significant immediate impact on the market. "Any negative sentiment is irrational assuming it is just a glitch. The profitability of companies are mutually exclusive to the PSE trading platform... net income will not be affected by the glitch," Limlingan said.

The bellwether PSE index finished at 7,041.27 on the first trading day of the year Monday, dropping 1.14%. The broader All-Shares index, meanwhile, sagged 1.05%.