It was business as usual today for the London Stock Exchange (LSE) after yesterday’s computer crash wiped out most of the session’s trading.
The market opened on time at 8am today, with the FTSE 100 Index building on yesterday's near 4 per cent gain following the seven hour shutdown.
Traders were left furious by yesterday's stoppage - the longest for more than eight years - as it struck on what is likely to have been one of the busiest days of the year.
Markets around the world were doing a roaring trade thanks to the US Government bail-out of the two mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Angus Rigby, chief executive of Leeds-based broker TD Waterhouse, estimated his business lost a six-figure sum worth of business due to London's shutdown.
He said: "There was a big sigh of relief to see everything working as normal this morning. We lost quite a bit of business yesterday.
"The reality is that anyone who was thinking of using other exchanges, that is a path they will now have to consider a bit more. "We are held to account by our customers and can't afford to have an interruption like that."
A message on the LSE website said today: "The Exchange regrets the earlier interruption to trading and is conducting further investigations. Operations today were "as per standard trading schedule", it added.
The stoppage will have been a major embarrassment for LSE boss Dame Clara Furse, who yesterday publicly extolled the virtues of the exchange's technology in a letter published in the
Financial Times.
In today's early trading, the boost the US Government mortgage industry support appeared to have continued, with banks among the best performing blue chip companies.
Royal Bank of Scotland was the biggest riser, up nearly 5 per cent, with Britain's biggest mortgage lender, HBOS, up nearly 4 per cent.
Airlines were also in better shape as the price of crude oil fell to a four-month low below $105 a barrel. British Airways added more than 2 per cent, with budget carrier easyJet nearly 4 per cent up.
PA
