NSE glitch causes quote confusion

Mumbai: Early Monday trade on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), India's biggest bourse, was hit by a technical glitch that led to disruptions in the live feeds of index and stock values. Brokers said the ticker wasn't being updated on screens for over an hour, causing panic as orders couldn't be placed in the absence of real-time quotes.

The NSE spokesperson however denied any disruption in trading.

"Trading in all segments was functioning normally. However, NIFTY and BANKNIFTY indices were intermittently not getting broadcasted," said the spokesperson.


Officials at top brokerages told ET that the snag was fully resolved at 10:30 am. They said live data for stocks on the NSE were restored at around 9:50 am, but the issue with the index feeds was sorted out only around 40 minutes later.

Action from Disaster Recovery Site
Trading in the Nifty 50 index and Nifty Bank index constitute the bulk of derivatives volume on the NSE.

"We had issues with live feeds from NSE where last traded price stopped ticking at around 9.25 am and was resolved at around 9:45 am," said Sandeep Chordia, joint president, Kotak Securities. "We got to know that NSE is operating from their disaster recovery site, which could have resulted in the glitch."

NSE said in a circular on March 3 that the exchange would conduct mock and live trading sessions between March 5 and 8 from its disaster recovery site.

"We had asked clients to check market depth for rates or check last trading price on BSE before proceeding for the trade. For a long period, even after 9:45 am, there was an issue with indices not ticking," said Chordia.

Brokerage Zerodha tweeted that stock prices were not getting updated in the morning.

"There is an issue with data feeds for NSE stocks from the exchange across all brokers. Please check 20 market depths before placing orders or placing orders on BSE. Order placement is not affected. We're checking this with NSE," Zerodha said in a statement on Monday morning.

Market participants took to social media to express their frustration. Traders complained prices were not updating, and they had to refer to BSE prices, causing losses.

On February 24 last year, the NSE had shut trading in equities and derivatives for about four hours on account of a glitch, forcing exchanges to extend trading time by two hours in an unprecedented move. The exchange that day resumed operations at 3:30 pm, the normal daily closing time, and stayed open until 5:30 pm. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) had sent show-cause notices to top employees of NSE in connection with the glitch. This was the first time the capital market regulator has held exchange employees personally liable for trade disruptions. The result of the enquiry into that episode isn't known yet.

Earlier on September 23, 2019, the NSE faced issues in broadcasting price feeds from its servers in Hyderabad and Jaipur.