London Stock Exchange hit with longest outage in eight years

The London Stock Exchange (LSE) suffered its longest outage in eight years on Friday, delaying the trading of shares in some of Britain’s largest companies.

A software glitch meant that trading in FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 stocks started at 9:40am rather than at the usual time of 8am, the LSE said. The affected companies included AstraZeneca, BHP Group, BP, HSBC, Shell and Unilever.

Trading in the shares of smaller companies opened as normal at 8.

The incident added to the drama that has roiled global financial markets this week. Worries about the US-China trade war and a possible US recession have made for volatile trading.