TSE works overtime to expand trade capacity by Monday

The Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) will increase the trading capacity of its equity, convertible bonds and exchangeable bonds markets by half a million executed trades a day from Monday if tests to upgrade the system over the weekend are successful, according to an exchange spokesman.

Earlier this week, allegations of fraud at internet company Livedoor pushed the level of executed trades close to the exchange’s capacity of 4.5 million, which forced the early closure of the markets and a curtailment of trading hours. If the tests are successful, Monday trading will have an upper limit of 5 million executed trades.

The spokesman said the increase was designed to prevent a repeat of the Tuesday closure. “The worst thing is to suspend trading,” he said, adding the number of transactions have decreased since the TSE cut afternoon trading by 30 minutes on Tuesday, with Friday’s levels well below the threshold at 3.35 million.

A chief information officer will be named in the coming days, according to the TSE spokesman. The position was created last month to oversee IT operations at the exchange after the trading system failed to implement trade cancellation requests by a Mizuho Securities broker. The failure resulted in $330 million of potential losses for the dealer.

The TSE is looking to increase capacity further and the newly appointed chief information officer will finalise the strategy. TSE president and chairman Taizo Nishimuro said the exchange planned to increase capacity to 7 or 8 million executable trades a day, but offered no timetable for the upgrade.