SGX mired in darkness after major power outage on Wednesday

Trading was halted for several hours.

The Singapore Exchange’s trading systems were blanketed in darkness for over two hours on Wednesday, with frustrated bankers forced to halt trading in both securities and derivatives markets.

According to a statement from the SGX, the outage was result of multiple power supply issues, affecting SGX’s hardware providing market participants’ connectivity.

“The outage did not arise from a cyber-attack,” the SGX stressed in a statement. SGX Chief Operations and Technology Officer also said that the disruption’s root cause is still under investigation.

Market participants were disconnected at 1418 hours and SGX declared a formal trading halt at 1451 hours. No trades were executed between 1418 hours and 1451 hours.

The Securities market pre-opening session started at 1700 hours and the market reopened for trading at 1715 hours. Trading was extended beyond the normal trading hours to provide for the required minimum of 30 minutes of continuous trading. Securities market closing session started at 1745 hours and the market closed at 1751 hours.

The Derivatives market pre-opening session started at 1845 hours and the market reopened for trading at 1900 hours. 

Trading in both markets was orderly and the reopen was managed, ensuring adequate market participants’ connectivity.