Johannesburg - The delay in the opening of the JSE on Monday could cost SA's brokerage fraternity R20m on a conservative basis, according to a market analyst.

On Monday, the JSE's main bourse was still closed after noon as its technical team "attempted to resolve technical network issues", costing millions to investors. Trading eventually started after 15:00, with the JSE only closing at 19:00 on Monday.

One market analyst explained that if the brokerage industry had to do R20bn worth of trade in a single day, a lack of trade could cost the industry R20m for that day.

The figure is based on the absolute minimum one could expect a broker to charge, which is one cent for every R10 traded.

"There is an average of R10bn trade a day, but one has to remember that each deal is two-sided, so you can multiply that R10bn by two and say that the industry does R20bn of trade a day," he said.

Brokerage firms could lose much more than the estimated R20m as many charge up to five times more than a cent for every R10 traded, which means that the industry could lose approximately R50m or more.

"And they won't make up for what they have lost today in tomorrow's trade," he said.

Looking at the costs from the JSE's point of view, the bourse is also losing money.

For every equity transaction, the bourse charges a fee of R6.86, which is one of several costs it charges on trades.

Using this fee alone, and taking into account the 343 185 trades made for the week ended July 4, 2008, the JSE could lose R2.35m in transactional fees in a single week - an average of R470 850 a day.

One trader said earlier that the JSE's delay was "disastrous" as traders are losing out.

-Fin24.com