Watch how you place your trades.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: December 8, 2005
Filed at 2:30 p.m. ET
TOKYO (AP) -- Japanese financial-services firm Mizuho Securities Co. said Thursday it erroneously placed sell orders because of a simple data-input mistake, costing the company at least 27 billion yen ($225 million), officials and news reports said.
Mizuho Securities President Makoto Fukuda said the company mistakenly sold 610,000 shares of J-Com Co. at 1 yen (less than 1 cent) per share, instead of fulfilling a client's request to sell just one share at 610,000 yen ($5,080), Kyodo News agency reported.
Fukuda said the erroneous sell orders on the Tokyo Stock Exchange for more than 40 times the number of J-Com's outstanding shares were placed by a simple data-input mistake, according to Kyodo.
The warning on the data-entry mistake was overlooked, and attempts to cancel the sell order were unsuccessfully.
The mishap also sent the benchmark Nikkei 225 index down 301.30 points, or 1.95 percent, to finish at 15,183.36 points on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Mizuho Financial Group dropped 3.4 percent to 890,000 yen ($7,416.67).
Thursday's loss could wipe out Mizuho Securities' net profit of 28 billion yen ($233 million) posted in the first quarter ended in March.
The TSE has said the exchange won't cancel the transactions even though they were executed on erroneous orders.
Mizuho Financial Group Inc. said it will fully back its securities arm's losses from the erroneous trades while officials investigate what exactly caused the mistake, the companies said in separate statements. |
