Blackout for the Tokyo Stock Exchange: hardware error

Yesterday the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the main Japanese stock exchange and third in the world in importance, was sunk by a hardware problem: it was the worst blackout in the history of the index, such as to prevent any type of transaction for the whole day.

A hardware problem blocks the Tokyo Stock Exchange

The failure of a system designed in collaboration with Fujitsu, dubbed Arrowhead, causes the slide. Attempts to start a backup infrastructure in order to ensure the operation of TSE have not been successful. This is the brief statement entrusted to the Bloomberg editorial team and attributed to Takeo Tanaka, company spokesperson who apologizes for what happened.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused to interested parties due to a malfunction in the hardware components we have provided.

The incident also caused disservices to other indices managed by the Japan Exchange Group, in control of the Tokyo stock exchange: those of Nagoya, Fukuoka and Sapporo which leverage the same technology made available by Fujitsu. Koichiro Miyahara, president and CEO of TSE, comments below.

All responsibility is attributed to us as market operator. Fujitsu is only a vendor who supplies the equipment.

The Arrowhead system, introduced in 2010, withstood the severe test of the tsunami in March 2011: despite the strong shocks felt in the Japanese capital, the stock index remained always operational. Instead, two episodes date back to 2012 in which errors and glitches caused some misunderstandings, however not comparable in impact and duration to that of yesterday.

Source: Bloomberg