With a technical glitch, country’s largest bourse National Stock Exchange (NSE) on Monday was suspended for over three hours, leaving investors with no real time updates. The bourse’s both cash and derivative segments were hit badly. Though the exchange gave regular updates on when trading would start, rumour mills were working overtime on the cause of the delay.
Despite the technical snag with the NSE, stock markets on the Dalal Street rallied as BSE benchmark Sensex touched a record high of 31,768.39 points, surging by over 355 points. Nifty too settled above the 9,700-mark for the first time despite technical glitches.
The real reason for the sudden halt was not clear but the exchange attributed it to technical glitches and the Finance Ministry also sought a report from market regulator SEBI on the issue. The IPO-bound exchange ‘deeply apologised’ for the glitch even as trading went off smoothly at rival BSE where volumes surged. Sources at the Finance Ministry said it was a technical problem that led to trading disruptions and there was no information about hacking.
Investors faced problems since morning in executing trade and the exchange stopped trading in cash as well as Futures and Options (F&O) segment. After at least two attempts to set things right, the NSE resumed operations at 12.30 hours but display issue persisted which was addressed later.