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No mischief, says Stock Exchange Chief
By Santhush Fernando
With the Colombo Stock Exchange setting record after record during the past few weeks, some investors were questioning why trading began at 9 a.m. on Thursday instead of the usual 9.30 a.m.

Amidst questions as to whether there was any manipulation, Stock Exchange Chief Hiran Mendis said it was only a manual error. He said the bourse, anticipating a system failure in the event of an intense influx of orders, had brought forward the pre-open, the time when orders are placed but no trading takes place. He said the time was advanced to 8:30 a.m from 9:00 a.m on October 8, making it easier for the Automated Trading System (ATS) to process.

On Wednesday, trading was suspended for 25 minutes, due to the heavy influx of orders. Mr. Mendis explained that as the ATS was programmed to start executing orders 30 minutes after the pre-open, the system should be set manually, each day, but on Thursday due to human error, the ATS was not set and in turn triggered the trading to take place after 9 a.m.

Mr. Mendis said that all trading which took place during that time would be valid.
But an official of a stockbroking firm said such incidents should not take place as they would have an adverse impact on investors confidence.

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