Securities companies were fielding various inquiries Thursday, after all stock trading was suspended for the day following a systems failure on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Similar problems have occurred on the TSE in the past, and investors and brokers voiced disappointment at yet another such incident.
"I placed a large amount of sell orders from the morning, anticipating shares would rise. But I couldn't sell," a 50-year-old male investor in Minato Ward, Tokyo, said angrily. "The profit would have been several million yen. It's a big loss."
In the Kabutocho district of Chuo Ward, Tokyo, which is home to many brokerages, displays on buildings only showed the names of companies, and all share prices were blank on Thursday morning.
"I was wondering what happened," said a male company employee, 62, of Kita Ward, Saitama, who was on his way to work. The man said that he trades shares and was worried.
Securities companies were busy collecting information and dealing with customer inquiries.
"The TSE has had major troubles before. The response from investors is 'not again,'" said Tomokuni Kameyama, 42, head of IwaiCosmo Securities Co.'s Tokyo sales department.
Ryuichi Ishii, head of The Tachibana Securities Co.'s sales planning department, said, "There's no way to deal with this unless the cause is clear." The company received many trading orders for NTT Docomo Inc., whose parent company NTT Inc. decided to make it a wholly owned subsidiary.
"We're lucky it was before the start of trading. It might have been more chaotic if it was in the afternoon," said Ishii, 53.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said at a press conference Thursday that the Financial Services Agency has instructed the Japan Exchange Group and the Tokyo Stock Exchange to investigate the cause of the system failure, and determine how to restore it.
Regarding the possibility of a cyberattack, Kato said, "We haven't confirmed such information at this point."
"It's very regrettable that trading cannot be conducted on an exchange, which is a critical piece of infrastructure for the market, because that restricted investors' trading opportunities," he said.
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