TOKYO -- The full-day shutdown of the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Thursday highlighted not only the fragility of the infrastructure underpinning Japan's markets, but how the bourse's emergency response plan failed to specify how to restart the market after the glitches were fixed.
The problem was traced to a particular piece of equipment in the TSE's systems, known as a shared-disk device. Swapping out the problematic gear would have allowed the exchange to restart its "arrowhead" trading system and reopen markets. Yet it opted instead to halt trading for the entire day.
