Brokers must define order limits, says NSE

The NSE has urged its member-brokers to pre-define order limit of each terminal through which they operate in both cash and derivative segments across asset class based on various criteria.

This move by NSE comes in consequently after the recent flash crash incident of their member — a Mumbai-based Emkay Global Financial Services — which witnessed the benchmark S&P CNX Nifty index of NSE crash by 16 percent in two minutes due to a freak trade that punched an erroneous order worth Rs 600 crore in the cash segment was executed in 59 trades at lower price. 

Currently, NSE has more than two lakh trading terminals across the country and around 1,500 members. While NSE terminals required brokers to define their orders even earlier, most trading houses had put their terminals on no limit mode as a matter of convenience for quick execution of large institutional orders.

Following the flash crash, NSE had stressed that brokers should have checks and balances at their level too.  However, experts had criticised the NSE move saying that bourses should have checks and balances to handle crises if brokers risk management systems fail.

Now NSE has made it clear that trading members will have to predefine limit of each order based on quantity, value, user, branch and spreads for every terminals.