Oct 02 (NHK) - Trading resumed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Friday after it was halted by a technical glitch for all of Thursday. The session ended without any disruptions.
Trading kicked off at the usual time of 9 AM, bringing some relief to market participants.
TSE officials said Thursday's glitch was triggered by a hardware failure in the system. Switching to a backup device also failed, making it impossible for market information to be distributed.
The TSE replaced the equipment that caused the failure and confirmed that there was no problem with the trading system.
The outage had a wide-ranging impact. Local exchanges in Nagoya, Fukuoka, and Sapporo use the same system as Tokyo to execute trades. They also reopened on Friday after a hiatus the previous day.
The benchmark Nikkei Average finished 0.67 percent lower compared to Wednesday's close.
The index tumbled after US President Donald Trump tweeted he and the first lady tested positive for COVID-19.
Some investors were in a wait-and-see mood as they were still worried about the system's stability.
Firms related to Thursday's technical glitch lost some ground. Japan Exchange Group, which operates the TSE, shed nearly two percent. Fujitsu, which developed the trading system, tumbled by 2.75 percent.
The Financial Services Agency instructed the Japan Exchange Group and the TSE to report what measures they'll take to prevent a recurrence.
