London Stock Exchange hit by new trading outage

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The London Stock Exchange suffered an outage on Tuesday morning, hitting trading in hundreds of small-cap stocks and marking the third glitch in less than two months at a venue battling falling trading volumes. 

For about 40 minutes on Tuesday morning, only stocks on the FTSE 100 and 250 indices and global depositary receipts — a certificate representing shares in overseas companies — were able to be traded.

The exchange first said it was investigating the issue at 9.29am, with trading suspended in companies including online retailer Asos, drinks maker Fevertree and polling business YouGov.

At 10.17am, the LSE said normal trading had resumed for affected stocks.

The outage appears identical to an issue the exchange faced in mid-October, when trading in the shares of hundreds of small companies was forced to end early. The venue later said the incident was a technical issue caused by a matching engine fault.

In November, FTSE Russell indices also faced a trading glitch.

The incident on Tuesday marks the latest blow to the LSE, whose services are relied on by thousands of investors across the world but which is facing tumbling trading volumes. 

Daily equity trading volumes on the LSE fell 20 per cent in the third quarter of this year compared with the same period last year, to £3.3bn a day. In recent years, the LSE Group has increasingly focused away from equities towards data, as it seeks to become a market data company, helped by its $27bn acquisition of Refinitiv in 2019.