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Swedish Stock Exchange Hit By Programming Snafu
New submitter whizzter writes "I was reading the Swedish national news today and an image in a stock exchange related article struck my eye. An order had been placed for 4 294 967 290 futures (0xfffffffa or -6 if treated as a 32-bit signed integer), each valued at approximately 16,000 USD, giving a neat total of almost 69 trillion USD. The order apparently started to affect valuations and was later annulled, however it is said to have caused residual effects in the system and trading was halted for several hours."
Sven: Hey der Ole, check out dis new app I got on my phone here. ... some underflow involved der? With de app, ja? Ah gosh gee, Sven, I'm sorry, I'll pay ya back after I settle up with da liquor store first, of course.
Ole: *takes the phone and looks at the screen* Oh hey idn't dat neat? A stock trading app!
Sven: Yeah I'm like a big shot power björker now! Börk! Börk! Börk!
Ole: Oh ja, you betcha, hey I gotta a hot tip, I'm gonna buy six futures of Ikea for ya.
Sven: Ole, you idiot! Stop that, I've only got a few cents on my account.
Ole: Oh! Jajaja, oops, you're in da red now. Oofta, I'll fix this here, lemme just sell 'em real quick.
Sven: No, stop, you'll just make things worse!
Ole: I don't see a 'sell' button on dis thing, oh, I know! *punches some buttons* Oh dear. Oh shoot. Ja, I'm in a little over my head here, Sven.
Sven: *grabs the phone* Negative 460 trillion dollars!? OLE, WHAT DID YOU DO?
Ole: Oh well, ya see, I just bought negative six shares, ja? To undo me buying six positive shares, ja? And I guess der was like
My work here is dung.
Imagine it 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFA. That's a big enough number that it's unreasonable to type without scientific notation :)
The RIAA will have the money to do that once Napster pays up... and have $3 trillion left over
This is why you always use dynamic storage like a link list when you potentially have to deal with numbers bigger then the address bus width.
Naah just use a FLOAT. After all, nothing bad could ever happen when doing financial calcs with FLOATs, right?
(note to sarcasm impaired... ahh on 1.9999999nd thought forget about it)
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Well, at least now we know how RIAA calculates its damages; They must have hired the same developer...
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
How about this scenario:
"I can put in trades for any amount with this terminal"
"Any amount? What happens if you put in a negative trade?"
"It should kick out an error like this watch... I will place negative 6."
"Hey it took it! Lol I bet you just bought 6 shares!"
"Lets see it looks like it just....oh shit".
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
That's a big enough subnet for everybody. /IPv6 humor
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Re:Just wrote a 2500 pg [page?] paper on flash trading
;>)
.
Dude, you must be tired. 2500 pages? Or did you really mean 2500 words? Or was this a deliberate attempt to add to the humor by using the wrong units with the number? Or an amusing way to show how easily errors can slip by humans? Or just a result of tired-ness after typing and proof-reading that 2500 page essay?