German Exchange Glitch Hits Futures Volumes, Delays Big IPO

(Bloomberg) -- Equity and derivatives trading was delayed on the day of a landmark stock debut in Germany due to a technical glitch, Deutsche Boerse AG said.

Trading on the Eurex derivatives platform began at 9:20 a.m. in Frankfurt, an hour and 20 minutes later than normal, disrupting options and futures including Europe’s most-traded financial derivative, 10-year German government bond futures.

About 91.5 billion euros ($112.8 billion) of Bund futures trading had taken place on Eurex Thursday, but volume on Friday was just 20 percent of the three-month average, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, the open on Xetra, the country’s main electronic platform for equities, was delayed by 40 minutes just as traders awaited the debut of Siemens Healthineers AG. The Siemens AG unit raised 4.2 billion euros in its initial public offering Thursday, making it Germany’s largest listing since 2016.

Trading in DAX equity index futures was just 6.5 percent of the three-month average.

The issue also affected cash bond trading on other exchanges. Bid-offer spreads on Italian government bonds were wider than usual during the outage, as prices are often quoted with reference to Eurex futures, according to Gustavo Baratta, a government bond trader at Banca IMI Spa in Milan.

--With assistance from Lukas Strobl and Iain Rogers

To contact the reporter on this story: Joe Easton in London at jeaston7@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.net, John Viljoen, Brian Lysaght

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