Stock market trading was interrupted yesterday when the trading system broke down for the third time this year, putting some brokers out of action for 14 minutes. Legislators and brokers urged the exchange to solve the problem immediately, saying any more problems would seriously undermine the SAR as an international trading centre. An exchange spokesperson said the Automatic Order Matching and Execution System, which came into operation in 1995, experienced a 'slowdown' from 10.12am to 10.24am and from 3.52pm to 3.54pm. '[Brokers] simply could not conduct any trading as the system was reacting so slowly,' said David Friedland, managing director of online broker Interactivebrokers.com. Turnover was not affected, with the exchange trading $11.86 billion worth of securities, in line with the recent daily average. The slowdowns happened when a transaction order could not be executed immediately. With the system tied up trying to execute the order, it reacted slowly. Trading resumed normally after the problem order was removed manually. The system went off line for 45 minutes on May 30 in similar circumstances. In February, it was shut down when staff pressed the wrong button.
