Leap second passes without a hitch

The leap second came and went without a hitch and the internet barely registered what some had dubbed the next Y2K bug.

The leap second came and went without a hitch, with the internet barely registering what some had dubbed the next Y2K bug.

The addition of an extra second at 23:59:59 GMT on June 30 (09:59:59 AEST yesterday) by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service had been seen as posing a potential hiccup for computerised systems, with financial markets, especially, concerned about the ramifications.

The last leap second event in June 2012 caused widespread service disruption across the internet, including disrupting Qantas reservations. But yesterday was the first time the leap second correction, needed to account for the slight slowdown in the Earth’s ­rotation, had occurred during sharemarket trading hours.

Most hi-tech trading systems are synchronised using Network Time Protocol, which encodes time using the co-ordinated universal time as standard. A misalignment in the clocks can lead to faulty timestamps and overall system instability. But after the leap second came into play in Australia as the stockmarket opened, market operator ASX said it had been business as usual.

“ASX systems are operating normally and are up-to-date with the correct time,” said Matthew Gibbs, ASX’s general manager of media and communications. “We are continuing to monitor the market and our support teams are ready to assist customers if any issues arise.”

After-hours trading on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq was suspended half an hour earlier than usual.

CME Group, the world’s most diverse derivatives market, delayed the open of its CME Globex market trading as the inter­national clocks were adjusted.