The Financial Services Board (FSB) said on Friday it is looking into a programming error that caused the JSE to miscalculate inflows into SA equities by R98 billion.<\/p>\n
The JSE reported on Sunday that instead of foreigners investing a net R98.10 billion in their South African portfolios in May, June and until July 20, they were net sellers of an accumulative R36.4 billion of SA equities in May and June and buyers of just R0.05 billion in July.<\/p>\n
The bourse blamed the error on a computer programming problem which impacted the manner in which data was extracted from core transactional systems.<\/p>\n
But the JSE corrected the glitch on July 21 and has apologised for the error.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is unfortunate and as soon as we found out that we had an error, we addressed it immediately and corrected it,\u201d Leanne Parsons, director of information services at the JSE, told Fin24 on Monday.<\/p>\n
The FSB, however, moved on Friday to re-assure the market that it was looking into the circumstances of the lead up and causes of the error, and said it will be taking appropriate steps in this regard.<\/p>\n
Parson told Fin24 the error only related to those \u201cparticular statistics\u201d of non-residents and that the incorrect data came about due to a system update.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was correctly programmed initially but there was an improvement made to help performance and unfortunately, inadvertently, it didn\u2019t translate into exactly the same program being implemented.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said it was the first time that the JSE had any error in its non-resident equity stats.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Sasfin Securities\u2019 deputy chairperson, David Shapiro, said investors and traders should not be alarmed by the JSE\u2019s computer glitch.<\/p>\n
Shapiro told Fin24 that the real cash that flows would reflect in prices of shares, the rand and bond yields. \u201cThat\u2019s already there,\u201d said Shapiro.<\/p>\n
However, the FSB said it was important that the reliability of information released to the public by a market infrastructure, in this case an exchange, was assured and maintained.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe error has raised concerns in the market and among fellow regulators,\u201d the FSB said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Fin24<\/a><\/p>\n Don\u2019t panic over R98 billion JSE blunder: economists<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\nMore on the JSE<\/h3>\n