Sensex closes flat; Sebi seeks details of 3-hour BSE shutdown - Livemint

The exchange was shut around 9.30am after shares as well as indices stopped updating due to a connectivity issue. Photo: Abhijit Bhatlekar/Mint

Mumbai: The S&P BSE Sensex was little changed on Thursday as investors booked profits after the benchmark index touched new highs in the previous session.

Trading resumed on BSE at around 12.40pm after being disrupted for over three hours by a major network outage. The exchange was shut around 9.30am after shares as well as indices stopped updating because of a connectivity issue. This was a third technical glitch the exchange has suffered since April, hampering efforts by Asia’s oldest bourse to compete with NSE.

“The BSE has resumed trading with the pre-open session,” BSE spokesperson Yatin Padia told Bloomberg.

The pre-open session helps the exchange handle the possible scenario of any discrepancies in the stock prices on BSE and the National Stock Exchange (NSE), which was functioning smoothly.

Meanwhile, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has sought a detailed report on the trading shutdown.

“Sebi and the ministry of finance have asked for the details and the root cause analysis. The process is to prepare the report in a particular format, then present it to the technology advisory committee. Then the BSE board takes it up and submits the report to the regulatory body,” said Ashishkumar Chauhan , chief executive officer, BSE, while addressing the media.

According to a statement issued by BSE, the “network related issues” started at 9.42am.

“The problem was resolved by 12.15pm today before the market could be started from disaster recovery site located at Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City (DAKC)... The market closure duration therefore from 9.42am till 12.45pm was approximately 3 hours and 3 minutes,” said the statement.

While declining to disclose the quantum of orders that needed to be cancelled due to the shutdown, Chauhan said that generally the exchange sees 160-180 million orders everyday and around “one-third” of that would have been cancelled because of the shutdown.

The benchmark Sensex closed 0.07%, or 17.46 points, lower at 25,823.75. The Sensex stood at 25,928.26 before the halt. NSE’s broader barometer, 50-share CNX Nifty, declined 0.13%, or 10.35 points, to end at 7,714.80.

In intra-day trading, the Sensex hit a new high of 25,999.08, up 0.61% or 157.87 points, while Nifty hit a peak of 7,754.65, up 0.38% or 29.5 points.

The S&P BSE Healthcare index was the top gainer among sectoral indices, up 1.12%. The S&P BSE Realty index was the top sectoral loser, down 1.47%.

Apollo Tyres Ltd rose 3.35% to Rs.211.10, after its board approved to expand Chennai tyre plant and also approved raising foreign institutional investment (FII) limit to 45%.

GMR Infrastructure Ltd fell 7.98% to Rs.31.15, after news report says that the company is seeking $200 million in institutional share sale and is offering shares at Rs.31.50 to Rs.32.40 apiece.

Since the beginning of this year, the Sensex has gained 22.5%, while foreign institutional investors have bought $10.3 billion from local equity markets.

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