TSE has announced that the capacity enhancement of equity/CB trading systemin which the maximum processing of orders has been increased from nine million to twelve million per daywas implemented today as scheduled.
The increase was originally announced by TSE on April 25, 2006. And TSE also mentioned that it is currently planning for a further capacity enhancement to the trading system to accommodate up to up to fourteen million orders per day by the end of this year.
Accelerated efforts in system enhancement over the past few months have enabled TSE to relax the criteria for suspending equity/CB trading, which were placed in response to a spike in trading activity in the aftermath of the Livedoor shock.
Back in January, TSE had announced that the opening of afternoon trading session will be delayed to 13:00 from 12:30, Japan Standard Time, and should the number of orders exceed 8.5 million or executions exceed 4 million, after issuing notification, trading of equities, CBs and exchange bonds will be suspended.
This situation has improved now. Opening time of the afternoon trading session was normalized on April 24, 2006, and the circuit breaker for order numbers was relaxed on May 8, 2006. Instead of this numeric threshold, if such number of orders were to exceed ninety percent of clearing system capacity of 8.4 million, TSE will decide if suspension is necessary by looking at the overall situation. In case TSE concludes trading should be halted, market participants will be notified in advance.