The Tokyo Stock Exchange has been experiencing some technical difficulties. Basically they are using very old computer systems, that can’t handle the load of all the new people trading from home via the Internet in addition to normal institutional traffic. This forced trading in Japan to be halted early yesterday. And now trading limits have been put in place.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average was down for 2 days in a row and the glitches were starting to make we wonder if we might see a ripple effect in other markets, including here in the USA. Well the markets are open in Japan and off to a good start. At the time of this post the Nikkei is up 310.24! (Right now I think the Wall Street Journal Online is about the only news source that has released any reports about the open. I’m sure Bloomberg TV is also covering it.) Selling was high the previous days, because Japan’s darling Internet stock Livedoor is under investigation.

So hurray for capitalism and trade on.