Nikkei 225 Slump Caused by Deutsche Bank System Fault
By Toshiro Hasegawa
June 1 (Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Bank AG sent a spate of erroneous sell orders for Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average futures contracts because of a system malfunction, said Aston Bridgman, deputy head of communications in Japan.
The erroneous orders sent stocks on the Nikkei 225 into a brief plunge seconds after the market opened at 9 a.m. The average sank as much as 1.1 percent to 9,658.44 before rebounding to about 9,743. The gauge was at 9,691.08 as of 1:54 p.m. in Tokyo.
There were about 980,000 sell orders “at one point,” according to Tatsuya Kamiki, executive officer of the Osaka Securities Exchange. Orders for the contracts were placed at 9,690 yen and 9,700 yen, according to exchange data.
At the lower price, that values the orders at about 9.5 trillion yen ($104 billion), or about 3 percent of the total market value of the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, according to Bloomberg data.
“There was quite a lot of disturbance in the futures market this morning,” said Masanori Ikunaga, head of domestic stocks at Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management Co. “As the speed of orders and trades increases at the stock exchange, there will also be potential for these types of risks.” |
