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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."

9 of 398 comments (clear)

  1. You've got to admire the Mizuho execs... by The+Angry+Mick · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The company made a horrendous mistake and yet, there you see two executives bowing apologetically and taking responsibility on the day it happened .

    I have to wonder how a U.S. bank would have handled such a mistake?

    --

    I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.

    1. Re:You've got to admire the Mizuho execs... by HardCase · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Something very similar happened to me in a previous job. I made a mistake that cost the company several thousand dollars and had the potential to alienate a good customer. I told my boss what I did and we decided what to do to fix it. His boss wanted me fired. My boss' response was to tell her that the way that he saw it, the company had just provided me with several thousand dollars worth of training and he wasn't about to throw that investment away.

      I guess it worked out - my boss retired a year or so later and I got his job. And it's a lesson that I've never forgotten (and, fortunately, only had to use once).

      -h-

    2. Re:You've got to admire the Mizuho execs... by symbolic · · Score: 3, Interesting

      No, today when a U.S. exec screws up bigtime, he gets a fat bonus and maybe a nice golden parachute.

      Here's an article that focuses on these very kinds of problems in the music industry: http://www.indie-music.com/modules.php?name=News&f ile=article&sid=3906

      You might find this particular passage of interest:

      A few years ago at a party, I asked a CEO of a major label why this practice seemed so prevalent at the top executive levels of the music & film industries and the response was astounding. He said, "What you have to understand about the decisions to hire executives at that level, is that very often the boards of the company hiring them are much more comfortable with someone who's already had the position and done the job regardless of their past track record than someone they don't know regardless of their ability!"

      This problem is endemic not just in the music industry, but in almost every sector. With all the fat perks, it's almost set up so that bad performance is completely inconsequential.

  2. Scary forms by jfengel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A few weeks ago I engaged in some slightly complicated stock transactions, where I sold a company short then issued an order to buy it back if it rose to a certain price (in case it rose unexpectedly). Before I punched the "confirm" button I spent rather a long time making sure that I was saying "Only buy it when it hits that price" not "Offer to buy it at that price", which would have resulted in a huge loss for me.

    This guy's problem was presumably different; he knew what the forms meant but entered the wrong numbers. Still, it's kind of scary to be looking at a computer screen and thinking, "I hope this is right, or it's REALLY gonna suck."

  3. Trading typos are hardly that rare... by The+Grassy+Knoll · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A Lehmann Brothers trader keyed in a £300m sell instead of £3m in 2001 and cost the company £20,000 (in fines, cos he moved the FTSE downwards with such a large sell order).

    And a Bear Stearns employee typed in $4bn instead of $4m in 2002, again moving the index (thsi time the Dow Jones) down.

    Mostly though these positions are unwound by agreement between the parties. I don't understand why that didn't apply here.

    .

    --
    They will never know the simple pleasure of a monkey knife fight
  4. Re:Would be nice, but not really... by 91degrees · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's not about displaying this error. It's about displaying non errors. If you see too many dialogue boxes then they lose their significance, and people get lazy and click through them without reading them. I know I don't. I even had to close a window to find out what the buttons said when you do that. This is just human nature. UI design needs to cope with human nature.

  5. Re:Would be nice, but not really... by Anopheles · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The ones that REALLY piss me off are the ones for Windows patches. If you install an update that "requires" a reboot, and you hit "reboot later", it will nag you (by popping up another modal box with the same question) every 3 minutes. And there's no "cancel" or "stop annoying me" button. You can't stop the nagging.

    What's worse is that the default button on this dialog box is the "Reboot now" button.

    So I'll be typing in an email or a posting to something, and after 3 minutes are up, it will suddenly pop up the nagbox into the foreground, just in time for me to hit spacebar after finishing a word. In a blink of an eye, the computer forces every program to end without prompting to save and reboots...

    I can understand and can live with crashes. but that... That behavior was PLANNED.

  6. Re:Would be nice, but not really... by qray · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What I really hate is the way Windows allows a background application to interrupt a foreground application. I'm happily typing on along in my favorite editor when something hidden demands attention via a message box. Unfortunately that time I'm typing and I often hit a key that maps to a button or otherwise dismisses the dialog. Leaving me wondering what the heck did I just answer.

    Was it asking, "Would you like to format your hard drive?" or "Press OK to transfer all your bank account funds to Joe Smith.".

    This has been a problem for ages on Windows, and I can't believe they have yet to address it. A simple fix would be to create a brief quiet period that would allow the user to react and stop typing and respond.
    --
    Q

  7. Re:Data Validation by madaxe42 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Actually it's a market depth view. Each column displays the buy and sell side of the market, and the associated depth & volumes.