Nasdaq OMX, the transatlantic exchange planning a move to rival Europe's largest stock markets, suffered its worst IT glitch since 1999 after its systems went down for the second day in a row yesterday, leaving brokers unable to trade Nordic shares for over five hours.

Nasdaq OMX’s Nordic market, which supports trading of Swedish, Danish, Finnish and Icelandic stocks, did not open for the second consecutive day because insufficient numbers of customers were able to log on to the exchange’s main Saxess trading platform at the scheduled start of trading, forcing it to delay the market opening until 14.30 local time.