5 ms·

"A possible culprit for the drop was a trader error in which someone entered a "b" for billion instead of an "m" for million in a trade. Multiple sources confir

"A possible culprit for the drop was a trader error in which someone entered a "b" for billion instead of an "m" for million in a trade. Multiple sources confirmed the report to CNBC and CNBC.com" http://www.cnbc.com/id/36998463 http://www.cnbc.com/id/36998463 That sounds hard for me to believe, but thats one rumor. That wouldn't account for the 10% drop but it might have put initiated the drop and then caused other people (and computers) to panic and sell.

InclinedPlane 17y ago
Considering that the volume on Proctor & Gamble trading today not only does not include a spike of a billion shares sold but does not look different from relatively recent trading days, I'd chalk this one up to just a rumor and nothing else.
- fauigerzigerk 17y ago
  Today's chart does show a spike down to $50 or so, maybe even lower. Go to finance.google.com and look at the intraday chart. It also shows a volume spike, but curiously that's later. [Edit] Actually the stock was down at $39.37 from $61. On normal days PG barely moves at all.
  - mbrubeck 17y ago
    There's undoubtedly a price spike. But to confirm or deny the s/million/billion/ explanation we are looking for a volume spike at the same time.
    - fauigerzigerk 17y ago
      Don't forget all the derivatives linked to the price. You don't see that volume or the losses caused by that.
  - rdtsc 17y ago
    It depend on the resolution of the chart. If the resolution is minute-based, then it could have hit $0 then come back up to $39 within a minute. You wouldn't know. You'd have to have a special high-resolution stock feed.
    - fauigerzigerk 17y ago
      Yes, but I would expect that the low and high for the day shown on the finance websites does show everything down to tick level. Not real time of course.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
FlorinAndrei 17y ago
"That wouldn't account for the 10% drop" Welcome to the world of positive feedback loops, enjoy your stay.
danh 17y ago
Doesn't that kind of software have annoying dialog boxes saying "Are you sure you want cause financial meltdown?"? Or at least a less intrusive "Did you mean 'm'?"? It probably should.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  I think the first one is actually the better choice. It's really surprising, assuming this is really the cause, that a single letter typo could have such an effect and this has 1) never happened before and 2) not been caught in testing.
  - alttab 17y ago
    More than likely it is a cover story they hope will catch on enough to either cover the panic, or the real reason. I will tell you what though - someone... someone, made a lot of money from this. Inadvertently, but more than likely otherwise.
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      I doubt it's a person that made money. Usually individual investors lose big time when stop loss orders are activated, it's the institutional investors that win.
  - Nekojoe 17y ago
    Stuff like this does happen now and again. One example is putting the wrong value in the wrong fields - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4512962.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4512962.stm In the above case the trader got the price and number of share fields confused.
- gaius 17y ago
  No. I have actually worked on such software. When a price comes in - a quote - you have a fixed amount of time to respond before it goes stale, usually a few seconds. It's assumed you know what you're doing and that you want to move quickly. Same as operating any other high-powered machinery. I remember a feature request from a client of ours, we had keyboard shortcuts of k for thousand, m for million and b for billion. They wanted t as well.
Keyframe 17y ago
Rumor was that someone at citi fat fingered 16 billion of eminis instead of millions. Even if it were true, it would not cause as much as a dent in it. Market was on a sliding selloff already. My suspicion was that this was a manipulation or HFT gone wild or both. If there weren't that spike down, dow would be at -5% easily, but what happened was -9 and then up to -3.
- joegaudet 17y ago
  That'd be some mighty fat finger to hit the b and not the m... without hitting the n.
rdtsc 17y ago
> That sounds hard for me to believe, but thats one rumor. Would this rumor create insane profits for some? If that is so, those getting the profits should be investigated. Some employee could have been promissed a large sum in a off-shore account to enter a 'b' instead of an 'm'. It should look like an 'oops' to everyone else while a bunch of HFT algorithms could rake in serious profits as everyone's stop-loss triggers get hit. The employee might get fired, but he the pay-off was large enough, he might not need to work ever again.
10ren 17y ago
mille mille vs. mille mille mille? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1321405 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1321405
daniel-cussen 17y ago
Don't they enter the number itself, i.e. 1000000 instead of 1000000000. Doesn't seem so easy to get wrong.
copperred 17y ago
The Dow Jones is made up of only 30 stocks. A $20 move in P&G would have a large instantaneous impact on the index which could then trigger the algorithms to go nuts.

InclinedPlane 17y ago

Considering that the volume on Proctor & Gamble trading today not only does not include a spike of a billion shares sold but does not look different from relatively recent trading days, I'd chalk this one up to just a rumor and nothing else.

fauigerzigerk 17y ago
Today's chart does show a spike down to $50 or so, maybe even lower. Go to finance.google.com and look at the intraday chart. It also shows a volume spike, but curiously that's later. [Edit] Actually the stock was down at $39.37 from $61. On normal days PG barely moves at all.
- mbrubeck 17y ago
  There's undoubtedly a price spike. But to confirm or deny the s/million/billion/ explanation we are looking for a volume spike at the same time.
  - fauigerzigerk 17y ago
    Don't forget all the derivatives linked to the price. You don't see that volume or the losses caused by that.
- rdtsc 17y ago
  It depend on the resolution of the chart. If the resolution is minute-based, then it could have hit $0 then come back up to $39 within a minute. You wouldn't know. You'd have to have a special high-resolution stock feed.
  - fauigerzigerk 17y ago
    Yes, but I would expect that the low and high for the day shown on the finance websites does show everything down to tick level. Not real time of course.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

FlorinAndrei 17y ago

"That wouldn't account for the 10% drop" Welcome to the world of positive feedback loops, enjoy your stay.

danh 17y ago

Doesn't that kind of software have annoying dialog boxes saying "Are you sure you want cause financial meltdown?"? Or at least a less intrusive "Did you mean 'm'?"? It probably should.

jacquesm 17y ago
I think the first one is actually the better choice. It's really surprising, assuming this is really the cause, that a single letter typo could have such an effect and this has 1) never happened before and 2) not been caught in testing.
- alttab 17y ago
  More than likely it is a cover story they hope will catch on enough to either cover the panic, or the real reason. I will tell you what though - someone... someone, made a lot of money from this. Inadvertently, but more than likely otherwise.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    I doubt it's a person that made money. Usually individual investors lose big time when stop loss orders are activated, it's the institutional investors that win.
- Nekojoe 17y ago
  Stuff like this does happen now and again. One example is putting the wrong value in the wrong fields - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4512962.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4512962.stm In the above case the trader got the price and number of share fields confused.
gaius 17y ago
No. I have actually worked on such software. When a price comes in - a quote - you have a fixed amount of time to respond before it goes stale, usually a few seconds. It's assumed you know what you're doing and that you want to move quickly. Same as operating any other high-powered machinery. I remember a feature request from a client of ours, we had keyboard shortcuts of k for thousand, m for million and b for billion. They wanted t as well.

Keyframe 17y ago

Rumor was that someone at citi fat fingered 16 billion of eminis instead of millions. Even if it were true, it would not cause as much as a dent in it. Market was on a sliding selloff already. My suspicion was that this was a manipulation or HFT gone wild or both. If there weren't that spike down, dow would be at -5% easily, but what happened was -9 and then up to -3.

joegaudet 17y ago
That'd be some mighty fat finger to hit the b and not the m... without hitting the n.

rdtsc 17y ago

> That sounds hard for me to believe, but thats one rumor. Would this rumor create insane profits for some? If that is so, those getting the profits should be investigated. Some employee could have been promissed a large sum in a off-shore account to enter a 'b' instead of an 'm'. It should look like an 'oops' to everyone else while a bunch of HFT algorithms could rake in serious profits as everyone's stop-loss triggers get hit. The employee might get fired, but he the pay-off was large enough, he might not need to work ever again.

10ren 17y ago

mille mille vs. mille mille mille? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1321405 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1321405

daniel-cussen 17y ago

Don't they enter the number itself, i.e. 1000000 instead of 1000000000. Doesn't seem so easy to get wrong.

copperred 17y ago

The Dow Jones is made up of only 30 stocks. A $20 move in P&G would have a large instantaneous impact on the index which could then trigger the algorithms to go nuts.