The world's second-largest bourse, embarrassed by its inability to handle a crushing selloff that erupted earlier in the week, said Friday it would work over the weekend to raise its maximum trading capacity to 5 million deals by Monday.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange has been under intense pressure from politicians and investors to fix its problematic computer system. But last Monday's surprise launch of a criminal investigation into Internet startup Livedoor Co. helped set off a two-day selling binge that swamped its computer system and forced it to halt trading 20 minutes earlier than usual. It has since delayed the start of afternoon trading by 30 minutes to prevent orders from exceeding its capacity.
Although fingers are pointing in various directions -- at TSE executives, Livedoor, and the day-traders who flooded the bourse -- the global appetite for Japanese stocks is still strong, analysts said.