LME rolls back Select after upgrade fault

The London Metals Exchange will abandon an upgrade to its LME Select electronic trading system, after a fault disrupted trading several times this week.

All contracts currently traded on LME Select are also available via floor-based and telephone brokerage. The exchange is launching new mini-sized copper, aluminium and zinc monthly futures later this month, which will trade exclusively on the platform.

LME Select usually runs between 0100 and 1900 London time, overlapping the floor-based exchange’s hours of 1145 to 1700. A problem arose on Monday (November 6) following an upgrade of the platform, which then ceased trading at around 1030 that morning. Service was restored on Tuesday at 0100, but the LME was forced to switch it off again seven hours later, before another unsuccessful retry at 1200.

A spokesman for the LME said it would now attempt to roll back the platform to the earlier version, in time for the beginning of trading on Wednesday. He added that the system failures would not affect the launch date of the five-tonne miniature contracts, scheduled for November 20.