TOKYO — Stock trading in the world’s third-largest economy ground to a near standstill on Thursday morning after a technical glitch shut down the Tokyo Stock Exchange and some other markets across Japan.
The breakdown resulted from a problem in a system that reports market information, Japan Exchange Group, the company that operates the system, said in a statement on its website.
The company did not give details about the cause and said it did not know when the problem would be resolved.
Trading was also halted at exchanges in Nagoya, Sapporo and Fukuoka, the companies running them said.
Trading in Japan’s second-largest exchange, in Osaka, appeared to be unaffected.
Over 3,700 companies are listed in Tokyo alone.
Japan has faced similar problems over the years, with system glitches occasionally stopping some trading for brief periods. The last systemwide shutdown was in 2005 when a software upgrade malfunctioned, shutting the market down for half a day.
Makiko Inoue and Hikari Hida contributed reporting.
Source : Nytimes
