80 Stocks in BSE tremble, due to 'Tech snag'

Bangalore: On Thursday, the markets witnessed an unusual trend when the prices of nearly 80 stocks listed on Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) were altered by almost 20 percent. The stocks that belong to the 'S' and 'Z' categories usually attract five percent circuit breakers. According to market players, BSE did not issue any clarification during the day, nor did they halt trading at these counters to check the defect.

A senior BSE official told Business Standard that there was a 'Technical snag' and trading would resume on Friday with normal circuit breakers, however, he failed to throw light into the nature of the snag. According to market sources, some brokers were planning to take legal action against Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).

Out of the 80 stocks, 30 of them rose over 10 percent and 12 stocks went down by more than 10 percent. Brokers were also asking for additional margins from clients as these erroneous trades had caused them huge losses. Experts feel that this problem occurs when the exchange does not reverse 'Illogical or artificial trades', the price of a particular stock, which is part of this error, remains at a level that it could have never touched in the future. Proper action and withdrawal of all such trades is the need of the hour according to the experts.

A technical glitch was also noticed in the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), on Thursday which is the third glitch in a row for the stock exchange in less than a month. Brokers on the Wall Street trading floor, run by NYSE Euronext, had trouble routing orders for more than an hour early in the session. This problem forced the extension of the trading day in NYSE by 15 minutes to finish executing orders.