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The technical issue caused the site to display a drastic drop in the major index
Published : 10 Mar 2024, 05:34 PM
A suspected technical glitch has caused the Dhaka Stock Exchange website to show an unprecedented 98 percent fall in its key index.
After daylong confusion, the DSE on Sunday evening apologised for the “operational glitch that caused the DSE index to show abnormal stats throughout the day”.
It said the bourse continued its efforts to resolve the issue after an emergency meeting with New York-based stock exchange Nasdaq, which provides the DSE with trading technology.
The DSE formed a committee to investigate the ‘glitch’. Chief Financial Officer Sattique Ahmed Shah is heading the committee that has been asked to submit a report within three days.
The premier bourse of Bangladesh hopes the issue can be addressed within Sunday.
The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission sent two officials to the DSE and asked them to file a report within three days after investigating what had happened.
The DSE opened the week’s trading with the key index DSEX at 6,112.76 points, but ended the day at only 141.56.
When the index started the abnormal trend in the beginning, the stock exchange said it was a ‘technical glitch’, urging investors to continue trading and not to panic.
The graph showed the index was falling, but the points did not show any change at that time.
Around 2pm, the DSE said the glitch was fixed, but the index was abnormally low.
After the end of trading, DSE Chairman Hasan Hafizur Rahman said they were holding a meeting to find out what caused the glitch.
Rezaul Karim, the spokesman for the BSEC, said the glitch occurred during the adjustment of an IT firm’s updated data into the index.
He did not reveal the firm’s name, but the DSE cancelled trading of IT firm Amra Network’s shares. Several DSE and BSEC officials confirmed that the glitch occurred during update of Amra Network’s data. The officials requested anonymity as they were not authorised to share the information.
They said no index can plunge 98 percent in a day, given a circuit-breaker is in place to halt trading whenever price drop reaches a limit.
The confusion over the index prevented the investors from understanding the overall situation of the market, said Aftab Uddin, an investor.
When the index remained unchanged despite the graph showing a fall, he said: “Big companies’ shares fell, but the index remained unchanged. What can I make of it?”
