Oops! Trader mistakenly spends $251 million
Taiwan stock trader looking for a new job after accidental share purchases
TAIPEI, Taiwan - A Taiwan stock trader mistakenly bought $251 million worth of shares with a mis-stroke of her computer, meaning her company is looking at a paper loss of more than $12 million and she is looking for a new job.
The trader with Fubon Securities made a typo while filling in a small order from Merrill Lynch on Monday, creating confusion when many small firms inexplicably surged past the 7 percent trading limit.
“Something like this is difficult to explain to superiors,” a Fubon executive said on Tuesday.
Fubon said that the trader was unfamiliar with new computer systems and would be fired.
“There is a paper loss of more than T$400 million,” said the executive.
“However, with a good outlook for stocks in the second half, there are no plans to sell the shares in the near term.”
Everybody makes mistakes, especially at work. But I think I can safely say that noen of us have ever made a mistake that cost our company $12 million. Our mistakes at work rarely go unnoticed, especially by our bosses, and the repercussions usually involve other people. There's no such thing as a private mistake. In fact, it's generally a co-worker or our boss that brings the mistake to our attention. But most of them turn out to be whoppers, that require our boss' help to fix. Ouch.
Some might think it's hardcore that this girl lost her job for making this [costly] mistake, but hey - her company took a hit of $12 million as a result of her mistake. I guess I would have fired her, too. But you'd think that the securities company would have trained her on the new computer system a little bit better before they turned her loose on dealing with millions of dollars. I bet that company will start a new hire training program now.
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