Never Before Has It Been Possible to Make So Many Errors So Quickly.

[arnisador]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051209/ap_on_bi_ge/japan_botched_trade

Botched Stock Trade Costs Japan Firm $225M

Japan's government rebuked the Tokyo Stock Exchange and one of the country's biggest brokerage firms Friday after a typing error caused Mizuho Securities Co. to lose at least 27 billion yen, or $225 million, on a stock trade.

[...]

The trouble began Thursday morning, when Mizuho Securities tried to sell 610,000 shares at 1 yen — less than a penny — apiece in a job recruiting firm called J-Com Co., which was having its public debut on the exchange.

It had actually intended to sell 1 share at 610,000 yen, or $5,041.

Worse still, the number of shares in Mizuho's order was 41 times that of J-Com's true outstanding amount, but the Tokyo Stock Exchange processed the order anyway.

Mizuho says it tried to cancel the order three times, but the exchange said it doesn't cancel transactions — even if they are executed on erroneous orders.

(Emphasis added.) Wow, what an effect a transposition can have! Someone is a new millionaire because of this, I'm sure.

 

[michaeledward]

We've all been a bti dyslexic at tmies.

I wonder what my boss wuold do fi I mixed up two nubmers that cost the company a quatrer billion dollars?

 

[Ping898]

Didn't something like this happen at another one of the stock exchanges just a few months ago? I think was also an Asian Exchange, but I can't remember.

 

[arnisador]

Something like this has indeed happened before, but I can't recall the details.

 

[arnisador]

The cost of this error now stands at $341 million (40 billion yen), according to the WSJ. A Swiss bank may donate their $140 million in gains to an invetsor-protection fund, but the Japanese bank still won't get it back.

 

[BlueDragon1981]

Hey the stock market always has risk..lol...of course you always hope the numbers aren't wrong....That is a lot of cash...