Server glitch delays trading on DSE, index falls

The country's main capital market, Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), ended Sunday's trading on a negative note, with the benchmark DSEX index dropping 34 points to stand at 5,165.

Meanwhile, Shariah index fell 6 points to stand at 1,148 while DSE-30 index fell 11 points to 1,11,919.

Not only did the index fall on the DSE today, the first day of trading, but the amount of transactions in terms of money also decreased.

Shares and units worth Tk3,116,654,000 were traded on the DSE whuch is about Tk2 crore than the previous working day. On the previous working day, Thursday, the transaction value was Tk3,136,554,000.

A total of 397 shares and units of companies changed hands on the DSE on Sunday. Of these, prices of 73 increased, 270 decreased and 54 remained unchanged.

Earlier in the day, the trading was halted for one and a half hours due to technical glich. The day's trading began at 11:30am instead of 10am. However, trading hours were extended by half an hour today. Instead of 2:20pm, trading hours were set to 2:50pm.

Trading ended at 3pm for 10 minutes after the post-closing time. The persons concerned said that DSE trading is occasionally disrupted due to network problems. Today's incident is the first this year.

According to the rules, capital market trading starts at 10am on normal working days except for weekends. The late start of trading caused inconvenience to brokerage houses and investors. The DSE made an announcement on its website that trading could not start on time due to unforeseen reasons. However, trading on the other market, Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE), was running normally.

The occurrence of trading halts due to technical glitches in stock markets around the world is not new. However, such incidents are much more frequent and almost regular in the Dhaka stock market.

On July 5, 2023, a technical glitch caused a trading halt in the Dhaka stock market, which continued for two days. Earlier, in 2022, the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) sent the DSE's chief technology officer on mandatory leave when trading halted due to a technical glitch.

DSE sources said that a new data center was then set up in October last year. However, this is the first time such a problem has arisen after the new data center was set up.

Meanwhile, market analysis has shown that despite the delayed start of trading, a negative trend was seen at the beginning.