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Right numbers, wrong order.

posted by Zed on January 16 2006 17:44

Practical lessons in mathematics: division is not commutative. A Japanese stock market trader made a small error last month.

Japan’s government rebuked the Tokyo Stock Exchange and one of the country’s biggest brokerage firms Friday after a typing error caused Mizuho Securities Co. to lose at least 27 billion yen ($225 million) on a stock trade. […] The trouble began Thursday morning, when a trader at Mizuho Securities tried to sell 610,000 shares at 1 yen (less than a penny) apiece in a job recruiting company called J-Com Co., which was having its public debut on the exchange. It had intended to sell 1 share at 610,000 yen ($5,041). Worse still, the number of shares in Mizuho’s order was 41 times that of J-Com’s true outstanding amount, but the Tokyo Stock Exchange processed the order anyway.

I’m thinking this guy has a promising career ahead of him as a financial consultant for Brownie’s emergency planning firm.

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