Friday December 10, 11:05 am Eastern Time

Year-2000 computer bug bites Bermuda exchange

HAMILTON, Bermuda, Dec 10 (Reuters) - The Bermuda Stock Exchange has been bitten by the so-called Y2K computer bug.

The electronic exchange's daily trade report, published in the island's newspaper The Royal Gazette, has been listing dividend payout dates for two issues as 1900, a glitch that exchange officials said should be corrected by Monday.

The glitch occurred as the exchange went back to using a computer system that was replaced last December while upgrading software that generates the daily trade results published in the Hamilton, Bermuda newspaper.

``In the meantime, the exchange is relying on their original system, which is not registering dividend information with a year 2000 date. As a result, certain dividend payments are showing due 1900,'' the exchange said.

The listings have carried January 17, 1900, as a dividend pay-out for Watlington Waterworks, and April 14, 1900, as the pay-out for BF&M, the Bermuda insurer.

The Bermuda Stock Exchange (BSX) said it otherwise is ready for the rollover to the year 2000, which is feared to cause widespread problems in computer systems that have not been modernized to distinguish the year 2000 from the year 1900.

``The BSX seeks to reassure that the exchange is indeed ready for Y2K and this issue is being addressed,'' it said.

The BSX is a fully-electronic offshore securities market listing more than 290 securities, including equities, mutual funds, bonds and depository receipts.

The exchange, which installed a new trading system last December, was shut down completely for a day on Nov. 9 after computers failed following a software upgrade.

-- taxman (eggman@walrus.com), December 10, 1999

Answers

yep! And you lot think I've been joking when I've been posting all this while!

on de rock

-- Walter (on de rock@northrock.bm), December 10, 1999.