By George Liondis
The Australian Securities Exchange has been forced to temporarily suspend trading on the market because of a technical glitch.
On a day when major companies reported important financial results, trading stopped at 2.15pm on Tuesday and resumed again at 2.45pm.
The stoppage was blamed on problems with market data.
“ASX is aware that some participant and vendor applications are not displaying accurate market data in a limited number of securities,” the ASX said in a notice to traders.
“ASX Trade and the matching of orders are functioning normally.
“While this issue does not affect all participants, ASX believes it is in the interest of the whole market to provide all participants the opportunity to refresh their market data view at the same time.”
The ASX has had problems with its technology in the past, including a major meltdown that shut down the market for almost four hours in October 2011.
The latest issue came on a key day for investors with companies such as ANZ Banking Group and Macquarie Group providing trading updates, while important economic data such as housing finance figures were released.