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How about a confirmation checkbox? "Sales of this magnitude are for the world coming to an end. Are you sure the world is ending? If so, click yes."

Confirmation check box? But those traders want their gratification NOW!!! NOW!!! NOW!!!

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A typo causes a 10% drop in the market? Boy, that gives me a lot of confidence in our financial systems. :thumbsup:

 

We are doomed.

 

I once saw a guy lose $2.7 million in a couple of seconds. He put the decimal in the wrong place. It happens.

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The old system of floor traders matching buyers and sellers has been replaced by machines that process trades automatically, speeding the flow of buy and sell orders but also sometimes facilitating the kind of unexplained volatility that roiled markets Thursday.

 

“We have a market that responds in milliseconds, but the humans monitoring respond in minutes, and unfortunately billions of dollars of damage can occur in the meantime,” said James Angel, a professor of finance at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.

 

I believe this is what Tom was referring to yesterday. So a mistake and :thumbsup:

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Seriously though how do you eff up that bad

 

$16,000,000.00

$16,000,000,000.00

 

I don't know how it comes into play w/ stocks & w/ most/all of trades done electronically especially, but w/ currencies it's entirely possible or at least it was in the "old days".

 

1st, you have the problem that in the UK, they use Billion to represent what us Americans call Million (10^6).

What we call Billion, they call Milyard. When you trade currencies interbank, 10^6 is understood, ie not mentioned (eg: "What's the level on 8 Euros" means you're interested in either buying or selling 8*10^6 Euros (w/ US$)).

If someone erroneously said Million, depending on who you're talking to, you might well be obligated to a trade 1000x more than you intended. :thumbsup:

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I don't know how it comes into play w/ stocks & w/ most/all of trades done electronically especially, but w/ currencies it's entirely possible or at least it was in the "old days".

 

1st, you have the problem that in the UK, they use Billion to represent what us Americans call Million (10^6).

What we call Billion, they call Milyard. When you trade currencies interbank, 10^6 is understood, ie not mentioned (eg: "What's the level on 8 Euros" means you're interested in either buying or selling 8*10^6 Euros (w/ US$)).

If someone erroneously said Million, depending on who you're talking to, you might well be obligated to a trade 1000x more than you intended. :thumbsup:

 

Sure go ahead prove my point to be a non factor...

 

 

Lets just hope it was an international trade and not just hey Joe call Chris, see if he wants to buy or sell... :thumbsup:

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