The London Stock Exchange was forced to issued an apology after it was forced to halt trading at 10:33am today November 26th. The bourse halted trading after what it described as ' limited client connectivity issues spread more widely affecting numerous client connections.'

The statement said: 'The London Stock Exchange regrets the inconvenience to its clients as a result of the disruption to trading in UK securities earlier today. What started as limited client connectivity issues spread more widely affecting numerous client connections to UK securities. To ensure an orderly market, the Exchange took the decision to place the London market into an auction at 10:33, which had the effect of halting trading but allowed clients to continue to interact with orders on the system. Having identified the source of the problem and gained confidence in the remedial steps needed to restore market connectivity, the Exchange initiated an auction call at 13:30, with continuous trading resuming across the market from 14:00.

Xavier Rolet, CEO of the London Stock Exchange, said: "We regret the inconvenience that today's disruption to trading has caused for our clients. Having resolved the immediate issue, we are working hard to ensure this doesn't happen again ahead of switching to MillenniumIT's trading platform next year."

The Exchange last suffered an outage in September this year.