Taiwan trader’s zero sum blunder

There were red faces all around at Taiwan broker Fubon Securities after it was forced to admit a mind-numbingly banal trading blunder that caused massive confusion in the stock market and left the firm nursing a loss of almost US$15 million.

There were red faces all around at Taiwan broker Fubon Securities after it was forced to admit a mind-numbingly banal trading blunder that caused massive confusion in the stock market and left the firm nursing a loss of almost US$15 million.

The trouble started when Merrill Lynch placed a purchase order with Fubon for a basket of local stocks. The trade was for a modest NT$80 million ($2.5 million) but a Fubon trader punched in a few too many zeros and his firm piled into the market for NT$8 billion-worth of stocks.

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