Trading was cancelled Tuesday at the Philippine Stock Exchange following a technical problem that prohibited a number of stockbrokers from accessing the PSE’s platform.
The peso weakened against the dollar.
The PSE initially announced trading session was going to be delayed due to the technical glitch that plagued Tuesday’s session, before it officially announced the cancellation at an hour and a half past noon. Trading officially concludes every 3 p.m. of the day.
“Please be advised that trading at PSE is cancelled today, Jan. 4, 2022 due to technical problems encountered in establishing connection between the NASDAQ trading engine and the Flextrade front-end system. PSE continues to work and coordinate closely with representatives of NASDAQ and Flextrade to identify the underlying cause of the above-described production issue and come up with the appropriate solution,” the PSE’s announcement signed by its president, Ramon Monzon, read.
“We are sorry about this unfortunate incident and we are exerting all efforts to resolve the problem,” it added.
The peso closed at 51.30 to the dollar, down from 51 on Monday.
The currency opened at 51.10, an intraday high, and hit a low of 51.30. Trading turnover reached $1.22 billion.
Elsewhere, prospects of an early Federal Reserve interest hike despite surging COVID-19 cases put Asian currencies on the backfoot.
The US dollar index, which measures the currency against the yen and five other major peers, weakened slightly but held close to the one-week high of 96.328 reached on Monday.
Overnight, all three major indexes on Wall Street finished strongly, and the US Treasury yields gained on expectations of an earlier-than-expected rate hike as inflation fears outweighed the rising COVID-19 cases.
“Markets seem to have retained memories of 2021 and put Omicron in the backdrop with focus on Fed rate hikes leading to higher US Treasury yields and underpinning US dollar strength alongside continued buoyancy in equities,” analysts at Mizuho Bank said in a note.
