Bangladesh took the honour of having the globe's first stock exchanges to open smoothly on the first day of 2000. The U.S. Securities Industry Association in New York said operations were running smoothly early Saturday. France, however, reported minor problems in its banking system. Other South American countries reported no problems, as did Communist-run Cuba. It could not immediately be determined whether the glitches were Y2K-related.
All systems are green.
NERC oversees the operation of the power grid serving about 305 million people in the United States and Canada. Eight companies reported minor problems with clocks running on GMT that lost track of the date at the stroke of midnight GMT, or 7 p.m. EST, said John Castagna, a spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned U.S. utilities. He stressed, however, the problem was quickly resolved by resetting the clocks and there were no power supply disruptions. He said the problems were not repeated as midnight passed in the Eastern and Central time zones. Major U.S. companies also reported no problems.