SGX outage – a positive perspective, just think everything is fine

The stock exchange was out of business for more than five hours yesterday, the system was down and no trading for the whole afternoon session starting from 11.38 am due to some system fault. And as usual there were a lot of hue and cry by the remisier community. This is only natural as the down time would affect their income. So SGX please bear with the noises. Luckily no one is thinking of suing the SGX for loss of income. Half a day got no business can be very serious especially when the income is already down to $1,000 pm. How to make ends meet?  For those contra players that incurred losses as a result of the outage, just too bad, bear with it. The system cannot be perfect, sure got problems now and then. Nonetheless as reported in the Mypaper, ‘Frustration and disappointment gripped the trading floor, as remisiers took calls from anxious clients.’ What to do?

Oh, Jimmy Ho, President of Remisiers Society, don’t say this is unacceptable leh. Cool man. It is definitely acceptable. Hear this…

The most sensible comment came from David Gerald, SIAS Ceo. This was what he said and quoted in the Mypaper. ‘As I understand, duplicate trades are not problems unique to SGX…The trading halt is necessary in the interest of investors and to allow brokers to reconcile the positions.’  I must say this is true. With so many trades done, the brokers need time and better a lunch break to reconcile their positions. Now they have to wait for outages to do such a chore. So when there is no outage, I wonder how are they going to cope with their businesses and reconciliations? Really jialat. How nice to have lunch breaks to do reconciliation when they are so busy and cannot cope with the hectic trading.

David Gerald was also quoted in the Today paper saying, ‘Singapore is not the only financial centre where this sort of thing happens. It has and is happening in the American and European markets, as well as in Hong Kong and Japan,…Investors must understand that this is one of the risks they have to take in this market, like investors in the overseas market understand this risk well.’

I hear hear this kind of comments also feel shiok already. This is normal lah, so don’t get over excited. Boon Wan should also tell the critics of train breakdown that it is normal and common. So many trains running for so many hours, having a few breakdowns are normal mah. And when got breakdowns, can use breakdown time for repairs and maintenance and fault findings.

Quietly I said to myself, heng ah, that fella is no more around. Wonder what he would say if he could get up again. I think he would have to get use to new normal. Making mistake is ok.  Only one question that I am unable to reconcile, why pay people millions to make mistakes? Maybe I will find time to reconcile this contradiction in the next outage.

And Kenneth J, hold your horses man. ‘Trading outages damage Singapore Stock Exchange’s reputation?’ It would not lah. The outages are normal lah. Everywhere also got outages. Not to worry, not to worry. Peace, peace. Everything is fine, will be fine.