By ALIFAH ZAINUDDIN / Pic By TMR

Trade at the FTSE Bursa Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (FBM KLCI) and Singapore’s benchmark Straits Times Index (STI) were temporarily halted yesterday morning due to computer glitches at index provider FTSE Russell.

Malaysia’s Main Market was flat for much of the first hour of trading before the issue was rectified at 9.52am.

In response to the matter, Bursa Malaysia said the problem was due to a technical disruption at FTSE’s end, which was immediately resolved.

The ACE Market was also affected by the disruption and remained unchanged until 11.40am. Other indices such as the FBM Emas, FBM T100,

FBM Emas Shariah and the FTSE4Good Bursa Malaysia endured prolonged disruption with some opening after noon.

The derivatives market, however, traded as normal and was unaffected.

Remisiers contacted by The Malaysian Reserve were mostly made aware of the service suspension only after the system was restored and said it did not affect their trading activities for the day.

Across the causeway, Singapore’s equity benchmark was at a standstill in the first hour of trading before operations resumed as usual at about 10am. According to Bloomberg, the issue became evident when the STI remained stagnant despite a 3% share price drop by South-East Asia’s largest lender, DBS Holdings Ltd. DBS accounts for 16% of the Singapore index.

FTSE has not given a public comment on the disruption, but has confirmed that all real- time values related to their indexes are now updating accurately, Singapore Exchange Ltd said.

“The matter has been resolved,” the latter said in a statement.

The FBM KLCI resumed trading 1.14 points lower at 1,787.17 and went as low as 1,775.85 before ending at 1,778.13 yesterday. Turnover for the day was recorded at 2.09 billion shares valued at RM1.99 billion.

Among the losers were Nestle (M) Bhd, United Plantations Bhd, Hong Leong Financial Group Bhd, Carlsberg Brewery Malaysia Bhd and Petronas Dagangan Bhd.

Top gainers included KESM Industries Bhd, Seni Jaya Corp Bhd, Panasonic Manufacturing Malaysia Bhd, Ajinomoto (M) Bhd and Hong Leong Industries Bhd.

The local index tumbled in line with the performance of other Asian stocks.

Markets retreated on escalating trade tensions, the threat of higher US Treasury yields and early signs of an export slowdown.

At closing, China’s Shanghai Composite Index was down 2.5%, followed by Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index (-2.3%), Korea’s Kospi Index (-1.5%) and Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index (-1%).