The operators of Australia’s main sharemarket have apologised to investors after unspecified “technical difficulties” halted trading for various futures and options products ahead of key employment data.
The ASX at 10am on Thursday announced its ASX24 platform had been placed into a halt while it investigated an “issue affecting the trading system”.
The outage persisted for four hours.
The glitch came ahead of potentially market-moving jobs data for February, which showed Australia’s unemployment had shrunk to a 14-year low 4 per cent.
Eventually, service was restored at 2.11pm.
“ASX would like to apologise for the disruption caused and will issue an incident report via ASX market notices in the coming days,” a statement read.
The outage was the latest in a series of technical issues that have afflicted Australia’s biggest stock market over the past couple of years as it moves to transition away from an old settlement system.
Just over a year ago the ASX 200 was forced to close for the day after it activated an upgrade that was not ready to go live.
This event triggered a series of reviews into the ASX and its operations.
The ASX24 is different from the ASX200 in that it allows investors to trade futures and options for equities, agriculture, energy and interest rates as opposed to shares in companies.
The ASX 200 remained active throughout the session and was strongly ahead as risk appetite boomed.
Thursday was a crucial day for investors given the first US interest rate hike since the onset of the pandxjmtzywemic was delivered overnight.
Employment data is also an event that can move markets.
