Korean exchange technical issues cause investor anxiety to escalate... System stabilization is imminent

South Korea’s stock market experienced delays in some trades on September 9 due to technical issues, intensifying investor anxiety. The Korea Exchange stated that an error occurred in one of the listed index products (ETP), “KODEX WTI Crude Oil Futures (H),” causing delays in the trading matching system.

According to the exchange, the problem arose after the Kosdaq market activated the circuit breaker mechanism. The circuit breaker is a system designed to temporarily halt trading to prevent losses from a sharp decline in stock prices. The exchange explained that during this process, there was a discrepancy between the remaining quantity data of the price limit order for “KODEX WTI Crude Oil Futures (H)” and the actual market data. It is reported that this was caused by a specific quote not being excluded from the allocation after a price correction, leading to trading delays.

The exchange ultimately rejected orders for this product at 12:32 PM and suspended trading from 12:40 PM. Trading resumed at 3:00 PM after all technical issues were resolved. Industry insiders revealed that some orders were rejected or delayed between 12:30 and 12:33 PM, as well as from 1:39 to 1:41 PM.

Based on this incident, Future Asset Securities informed clients about potential order delays caused by the exchange’s system instability and advised them to confirm their trading results. The Korea Exchange stated it will conduct a thorough investigation into the cause of this event and develop measures to prevent recurrence. Some experts point out that such technical issues could continue to impact market confidence, making system stabilization crucial.