Trading has resumed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) after failing to open at the usual time of 8am due to a technical issue.
A spokesperson for the LSE said: “The opening auction on London Stock Exchange was delayed this morning due to a technical issue that has been resolved.”
The exchange later added: “London Stock Exchange identified a technical software issue that was preventing some members from entering orders into the pre-open auction system prior to the standard market opening time of 8am.
“To preserve the integrity of the market and to ensure orderly trading, London Stock Exchange decided to delay the market open while the matter was investigated and informed market participants accordingly. Following resolution of the issue, members were notified at 08:40 that trading would commence at 9am.
Trading across our markets has been operating normally since this time.”
The market was up 0.5 per cent after its delayed start, and traders seemed unruffled by the glitch.
Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: “It looks as if the market has been pretty orderly despite the delay and the glitch is a useful reminder to investors that they should never rely on liquidity – the ability to trade what they want, when they want, in the size they want and at the price they want – because it is not always there, either for technical reasons or market ones -such as a panic or crisis.”
AJ Bell’s trading desk said: “We put up a message on our website to advise of the delayed opening, to warn that no execution would be possible until the market opened up the individual stocks lines. However, customers were able to place limit orders online, in readiness for the open, and we did see an increase in volumes in this type of order compared to normal levels.
“After the delayed start, trading was ultimately pretty uneventful once it did begin, after an initial spike and then drift back, and normal trading resumed pretty quickly.”
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