Stock exchange Bursa Malaysia - which suffered a technical failure in its computer system this morning - was unable to open for business all today.

Trading on Bursa Malaysia Securities failed to resume at 2.30pm despite assurances earlier.

Bursa Malaysia, which suffered a technical failure in the trading system this morning, has not traded at all today.

In a statement earlier today, Bursa Malaysia said it was investigating the problem which caused the failure and were working towards resuming trading from the primary site as soon as possible.

Hard disk failure

Bursa Malaysia's chief executive officer Yusli Mohamed Yusoff told a press conference in the afternoon that the closure was caused by a failure of a computer hard disk.

He said that it the shutdown was the worst in the exchange's history. Trading has not be stopped trading for a full day in the last 18 years.

Yusli is expected to provide an overview of the current trading system and the steps taken to rectify it.

The Kuala Lumpur Composite Index closed at a 15-month low to close at 1,153.7 points or 21.13 points lower mainly due to political issues yesterday.

Weaknesses, however, was widespread across the region as Nikkei 225 closed 1.31 percent lower, Hang Seng Index plunged 1.8 percent and Singapore Straits Times Index slipped 0.02 percent.