Worldwide tech outage spurs selling pressure in global market

By Burhan Sansarlioglu

ISTANBUL (AA) – Selling pressure in global markets increased after the US-based cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which provides services to tech giant Microsoft, suffered a communication outage, resulting in disruptions worldwide on Friday.

Global markets saw a negative course following CrowdStrike-induced communication disruptions in companies, banks, the London Stock Exchange (LSEG), and US-based airlines.

The LSEG faced a global technical issue during the Asian trading session, preventing news from being published on the platform.

Selling pressure in global markets increased due to the outage, in addition to geopolitical risks and declines in the US stock market, which started with chipmaker and other tech firm stocks.

Given this news, European and Asian stock markets saw a sales-heavy course as the communication outage affected banks and other financial services.

At the same time, US index futures contracts saw a horizontal course.

In light of these changes, the FTSE 100 index in the UK fell 0.5%, the DAX in Germany 0.8%, the CAC 40 in France 0.4%, the MIB 30 in Italy 0.6%, and the IBEX 35 in Spain 0.4%.

As for Asia, the Nikkei 255 index in Japan closed the day down 0.16%, the Shanghai Composite index in China was up 0.2%, and the Kospi index in South Korea declined 1% near the close.

Meanwhile, CrowdStrike shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange fell 18%, and Microsoft’s shares declined more than 2%.

Additionally, the shares of Australian airline Qantas fell 1.6%, Tokyo-based Japan Airlines 2.4%, and the German flag carrier Lufthansa 1.5%.

*Writing by Emir Yildirim