Until last weekend’s system upgrade
Last weekend, the system engineers at Euronext decided it was a good moment for upgrade a router. Monday morning, the derivative markets at Euronext suddenly started to experience trouble shortly after the opening. A short while markets remained operating at half speed with half of the participants in the dark. Ten minutes later the exchange was forced to close the doors.
All derivative trading halted for most part of the morning. Market makers complained about unexpected trade executions while they assumed systems were down and orders had been pulled. Trading has been restarted, but some problems at Euronext persist.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
Until further notice most performance reports from Euronext – usually supplied on a daily basis – have been suspended. Here’s the official explanation in pdf. Apparently Euronext is trying to downplay the glitch – the problems started just after opening instead of 10:10.
Morale of the story is clear. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.