Typo on Wall Street? No freaking way

[Enrique]

I've heard this in two places now, some schmuck hit a b for billion when he meant m for million.

I don't know what happened on Wall Street today, but it wasn't that. If that were possible it would happen multiple times a day. People make typos all the time. This thing that happened today has never happened.

[Orrex]

1. Additionally, I have trouble believing that the software requires the trader to type "millions"

I've worked with four different trading platforms (admittedly, there are countless variations, so the four I've seen might not represent anything like the norm) and all of them required pure numeric inputs. That is, a five million dollar trade is entered as 5000000.00, while a five billion dollar trade would be 5000000000.00.

Incidentally, the largest single trade that I ever processed was for $750M, followed by $250M for the same client--it was a billion-dollar transaction, but the system couldn't handle trades that large, so we had to break it into to pieces. Whatever system the "fat-fingered" guy was using, I suspect that it would issue a warning for trades entered in that huge amount, if it would let them be processed at all.

If a typo did indeed occur along these lines, it seems almost more likely that he mistyped/miswrote an email to the person who actually placed the trade.

Of course, that would mean that there are at least two idiots who need to be fired, but that's how it goes.

[Frank Booth]

4. Plus, I think it's standard that you're only allowed to put a sell order in for no more than the

number of shares you hold. While I'm sure Citibank has a lot of P&G shares, I really doubt it has a billion, especially considering there are less than three billion outstanding.

This coupled with the completely bizarre accenture chart makes me think that something a bit more nefarious was going on. I'm sure there are people out there capable of hacking the NASDAQ and NYSE computers.

[kentuck]

6. Nefarious?

Do you think the big banks were involved?

[RonSunn]

12. No one mentions the rise back from almost 1000 points down

It seemed to be on the rebound but not enough time before closing.

I remember it dropped 500 points during bush terms like 4 times, and no one mentions that in the media.

[Delphinus]

13. That wouldn't

make Obama look bad. It might also help people to remember it's not a new occurrence.

[metapunditedgy]

2. I'm thinking the same thing. I think today the market showed us that

there's no REAL liquidity... in case anyone wondered.

[kentuck]

3. I think the big banks may have pulled back their stock...

just to show how much power they had over the stock market and the American economy and the Senators blinked.

[grasswire]

5. I'm not dismissing your thought on that

Keeping it on the back burner.

One never knows, anymore.

On edit: did you check the timing on those two?

[iamtechus]

7. Unbelievable!

No self-respecting programmer would design an input procedure that didn't have realistic LIMITS on input values. Also, even the pros need an are you sure? (y/n).

[girl gone mad]

8. Try this explanation..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=114x78454

Tyler's analysis is correct, imo, and he has predicted from day one that an event such as today's would be the outcome of the high-frequency trading takeover on Wall St. It was all fun and games as long as we were melting up, but now the tables have turned.

[The_Casual_Observer]

9. I always know when the market is going to tank. It's a day or two after

I think it's finally time to jump back in.

[PinkFloyd]

10. I also call shenanigans....

Because it's so hard to believe the entire market could go down the crapper just because one man accidentally hit a wrong button. If it is true, they need better security or better software or something. As much havoc as this could cause it would surprise me if we don't experience a cyber-attack of this nature someday.

[Scuba]

11. But no regulation is needed. Riiiiiiiight.

[Kablooie]

14. Al Quaeda has hacked the Wall Street computer system.