A technical glitch forced India’s largest commodity bourse the MCX to shut down for nearly 45 minutes on a day when gold and silver witnessed heightened trading activity around the world due to North Korea’s hydrogen bomb test.

Trading was hit at MCX just before opening time of commodity trading in the US, which is when volumes pick-up sharply.

MCX remained shut between 6:45 and 7:15 pm, after which the exchange allowed traders to re-login, a source close to the development said. It was not clear if order matching could resume immediately as traders were allowed to login till around 7:35 pm.

Gold futures that crossed ₹30,000 in India for the first time in 2017 were at the highest level in over a year. A trading frenzy was witnessed in bullion metals due to North Korea tensions. There was a trading holiday for equity markets in the US due to labour day but commodity trading on NYMEX was on. There was around a 2 per cent swing in both gold and silver prices in India, which happens mainly on news triggers.

“The reason for the technical glitch is unknown yet and something will only be said after a proper probe of the systems,” the source said.

Another source said that technical glitch could have occurred as MCX had done a few changes to its trading software.

Brokers also said that bullion trading volumes were comparatively low on the day of an event of massive proportions as trade execution was facing some problem since morning. MCX did not comment on an email query from BusinessLine .

MCX is the second exchange in India to be hit by a technical glitch within two months. Earlier in July, the National Stock Exchange (NSE) witnessed a three hour trading halt. Trading volumes were high even on the day when NSE was hit by a technical glitch.

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