What is Digg?67 Comments
- cr1stobal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I think the real culprit is whoever programmed the system. An invariant to make sure that users can't trade more shares of a stock than exists should have thrown an error and the trade would never have gone through.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Good. I wish they'd lost twice as much.
- roscoe2041, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It took me about 4 tries to understand what you just said.
- emiles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1So, interestingly enough, Slashdot is reporting this same story as "the $3 Billion" typo... That's a pretty big jump from $225 million.
- capn_caveman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think cr1stobal hit the nail on the head... some error proofing may have prevented this in the first place.
- adml_shake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+195% of the computer problems I deal with at work falls under:
PEBCAK
The king of all errors - jdunck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Actually, no PEBCAK should be possible when dealing with dollar amounts this large.
Besides, some very simple limits in the software allowed the risk to be so large. Basic rules:
1) You can't sell more shares than you own.
2) You can't sell shares for more or less than 1 std dev from the market price.
3) Trades valued over 1% of total stock value require two-party authentication.
How can this insanity possibly be called the typist's fault? - dialm4monojoy, on 10/09/2009, -0/+1This is no laughing matter http://digg.com/odd_stuff/Hilarious_Typos_Top_20_E ...
- duke_nate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Bet he commits suicide now."
On a reality tv show. - camintmier, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Definatly a PEBKAC situation, for sure.
For those who aren't smart, PEBKAC stands for:
Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair
Meaning it's the user's fault. - matx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1^^ 3billion yen ^^^
- hibern8, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1A better article on what happened: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1917093,00.html
- redwards, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Sounds like it's time for some seppuku
- LuckyJack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"We're not even going to bother firing you. Here's your knife, you can use the office over there. No your widow doesn't get a pension."
- samwyse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0nene7070 said "thats awesome... some people never learn..."
The people who never learn are the ones who design the systems. These mistakes happen very so often, because no one wants to put sanity checks into the software. If you're trying to sell for less that half the current price (or trying to buy for more that twice the current), the transaction needs to be confirmed. And with more than a simple "Are you sure?"
In related news, the rm command should only ask for confirmation if you're deleting more than half the files in a directory. - EnzanBlues, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0lol, that's funny.
- elfn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Congrats to whoever picked up those shares
- c0dek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0id10t...because there is no patch for user stupidity
- compu73rg33k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Whoops! It was an accident :
- Mesach, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Did this happen AGAIN? or is it just the followup decision as to what happened?
- ahawks, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Is the guy in the picture on that article playing solitaire or something?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I feel for the guy at the keyboard. I am the king of tipos.
Yes, it was intentional. - andykee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0225 million dollar dollar typo
- Bobcat7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0OUCH!
- Erock, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0that sucks
- mitsuogs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Who ever got those shares is one lucky person!
- igibson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0lol, beat me to it - PEBKAC!
- scrapstyle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Similar to PEBCAK errors are ID ten T errors
- highroller, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0LOL, wouldn't want to be in the IT department at Mizuho Securities Co.
- soulfire, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0pwned
- ray023, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I had to look up PEBKAC too. :P LOL
Here's the link for anyone else needing it:
http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?String=exact&Acronym=PEBCAK&Find=Find - chrbeam101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0somesones gettin fired.
- justinryan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0bummer
- junkfood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Good thing the Japanese are pretty laid back about making mistakes. About how many people in the typist's family do you think they had killed?
- joelp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Never send a human to do a machine's job.
- jasqwerty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Listen, this guy was obviously rushing is order, or just sleepy/drunk, but the software has some blame to hold as well. I've screwed up entering price/shares when I'm in a hurry, but guess what? The software realized it!!!
"Worse still, the number of shares in Mizuho’s order was 41 times the number of J-Com’s outstanding shares, but the Tokyo Stock Exchange processed the order anyway"
So my ***** e-broker's client software is orders of magnitude better than that controlling the entire Tokyo Exchange. LOL! - pt4117, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I worked for a company that this happened to a long time ago. It was insane. I think it was also an IPO type thing too. I don't know how this still happens. After it happened to us we were going to put in all sorts of safe guards that if you tried to trade above X number of shares the system would alert you. There was even another system that wouldn't let you enter a buy trade for x more than the last traded price, and a sell at x lower than the last trade. It's insane that this is still happening.
- duke_nate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"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."
That is the EXACT same statement i got when trying to cancel an order with overstock.com - jay2boat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0As a typographer, I can relate to his pain... in my biz, typos are ALWAYS costly, but not quite this much.
My all time favorite quote is by Lewis Grizzard:
"I fear guilt by typographical error." - kwilliam71, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Oops... Looks like Wal Mart is going to have a new greeter soon.
- poondaddy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0bastards, I submitted this story yesterday!!!!
http://www.digg.com/technology/Fat_fingered_typing_costs_company_$224_million - PhantomJM, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Wow... Sombody's gonna get a "window seat" out of this one. Maybe they'll take it out of his paycheck (for the next 67,000,000 years). :-)
- gmiller, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Maybe I put a decimal point in the wrong place. I always screw up on some mundane detail.
- Farker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0firstly, he's not playing Solitaire. That's the TSE (Tokyo Stock Exchange) BaiKai, an ordered list of bids and offers on the left and right hand side respectively.
Secondly, after this happened before in 2001 with Dentsu and the UBS screwup, all major investment banks put in simple checks to ensure it didn't happen. The trader at Mizuho overrode the warnings (maybe a user interface issue?).
Finally, that the TSE systems allowed this to happen is a total joke. The TSE does have high/low limits for the day that will put a stock into a trading halt, but in the case of IPO, it looks like they accept any stupid and oviously incorrect trade without any of the even most basic validations. This is the second major TSE screwup in as many months (the TSE was down for the entire morning session recently and noone could trade). The TSE officials will no doubt appologise again and take a temporary pay cut for a couple of months while doing nothing at all to fix the underlying causes of these problems.
I'm guessing the Miziho xmas party is off this year. I wonder if they got their bonuses yet? - fieldfalcon2000, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0look at his monitor, it looks like he is playing backgammon or solitare or something
- JaggedEdge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0xD why'd you guys have to go and spoil the fun for all us geeks... id rather let someone use an acronym finder to figure out wth PEBKAC rather than just give em the answer... JEEZ! Way to go! :P
- ShadowRider, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0LOL, suckers.
- vibri2001, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I guess that guy probably won't be expecting a Christmas bonus then
- skwirlinator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0In 2075 it will be Much, Much Worse- What if the typo is in population adjustment- see the Headline "Typo Costs 3 Billion Lives" Hey, I'll be dead already, what do I care...
- NoNom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0 poondaddy
The reason why you didn't get that many diggs is b/c you gave it a bad title. "Fat fingered typing costs company $224 million" Is too long and doesn't get to the point. Who would want to read somethings the begins with fat fingered typing? "$225 million dollar typo", on the otherhand, is short and got straight to the point. -
Show 51 - 67 of 67 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is