(Bloomberg) -- The London Metal Exchange banned traders from placing orders outside its newly-introduced daily price limits, in an apparent effort to address a series of large but unexecutable electronic orders in the nickel market.

The LME first introduced daily limits on how far prices could move last week, after a short squeeze in nickel saw prices jump 250% in two sessions, causing mayhem and leading the exchange to suspend trading.

When it tried to reopen the market, a series of technical glitches allowed prices to trade outside of the daily limits, creating confusion among traders and embarrassment for the exchange as it sought to restore order.

Since nickel trading restarted last week, the market has spent much of the time either limit-up or limit-down. For the long hours during which no nickel contracts changed hands, traders have fixated on the LME’s order book, showing how much buyers and sellers are willing to trade and at what price.

Read: Nickel Bulls Are Taunted by a Huge Sell Order as Trading Reopens

In recent sessions there have been a large number of resting orders outside of the daily price limit, often at levels that are well above or below the prevailing market. 

When the market first reopened last week, the order book showed huge sell orders at the limit-down price and above it, which dealers said weighed on price expectations.

On Wednesday this week, as the market traded limit-up, the order book showed a series of unusually large, 100-lot sell orders starting at the limit-up price and repeating at increasing $100 price intervals.

On other occasions, the order book has appeared to be a venue for traders’ jokes, with orders appearing at times more than $20,000 below the market price.

In a notice on Thursday, the LME said that it was introducing a ban on submitting orders outside the price limits with immediate effect, “to support the fair and orderly functioning” of the market. It said it could take disciplinary action against traders who fail to comply.

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