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The 3 Billion Dollar Typo

Posted by Zonk on from the this-is-why-coffee-is-a-daily-requirement dept.

Rand310 writes "Mizuho, the world's second largest bank based in Japan, with total assets of nearly the GDP of France (around 1.2 trillion USD) accidentally sold 610,000 shares, valued at $3.1 billion... for 1 yen each. A 27 billion yen loss would almost match Mizuho Securities' group net profit of 28.1 billion yen for the financial year ended in March, though... the incident would not threaten the brokerage's financial stability. FYI 1 yen is about .83 cents. Yesterday one share was selling at $5,065, today you could theoretically have bought 610,000 shares for $.0083 each. An expensive switch of variables."

3 of 398 comments (clear)

  1. Would be nice, but not really... by KingSkippus · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, the shares weren't actually sold for 1 yen each. From TFA:

    No buyer was actually able to pick up the phantom shares for 1 yen due to market rules designed to limit price fluctuations, but the shares may have gone as cheaply as 572,000 yen ($4,750) each, a more than 9 percent discount to the intended sale price.

    Selling the shares for 572,000 yen is where the 27 billion yen figure came from, not selling them for 1 yen.

    Also...

    ...you could theoretically have bought 610,000 shares for $.0083.

    Aside from the fact that you couldn't have theoretically bought the shares because of market safeguards already mentioned, that sentence is missing a very important word: 610,000 shares for $.0083 each.

    Still, it would have been one helluva holiday sale, wouldn't it?

    The other thing I thought was interesting was from the other article. It said:

    The accidental order was 42 times bigger than the number of issued shares, but a computer warning of the misplaced order was overlooked.

    How much yen do you want to bet that it's one of those stupid "Are you sure?" dialog boxes that everyone clicks "Yes" to without actually thinking about what it's asking? Ah, how I love ignoring those warnings, too.

    1. Re:Would be nice, but not really... by 110010001000 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yes, but if Slashdot was more accurate it would be less dramatic. The idea is to increase pageviews by posting hyped and controversial "stories" in order to increase revenue. This was probably a policy instituted by upper management to help the flagging LNUX (Slashdots parent company) stock price.

      Haven't you noticed that as the stock price goes down, the hysteria on the front page goes up? Anything to make a buck!

    2. Re:Would be nice, but not really... by jjapan · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually the message box is rather large and declares the error very clearly. In addition it shows the details of what the action will do. Whoever did this really was either not watching or was using the safety net to enable some friends to make a killing. The news here interviewed day traders who made a lot of money on this deal. The blip lasted for about 3 minutes and was jumped on very quickly. The day traders referred to it as a "Christmas present". Investigation going on now. Be interesting to see what turns up.