When you’re dealing with important documents or payments, people always advise you to check the information you’ve filled in 2 to 3 times. However, some people don’t check their work and just want to get things done. This is how a trader’s typo at the Tokyo Stock Exchange spiralled into a serious mistake! Keep on reading to discover more.
You’d think that nowadays typos are a fairly uncommon thing when it comes to very important documents. And even though multiple people are checking the work of others there are still typos that fall through the cracks. One of the most recent examples is the typo on Mattel’s Wicked doll’s boxes, where they accidentally wrote the link to an adult website on the packaging of a kid’s toy!
A small Typo Caused nearly 500 million in losses!
In 2005 a trader at the Tokyo Stock Exchange intended to sell one share of Telecom Firm J-Com at a price of 610,000 yen. However, due to a typo, he listed 610,000 shares for 1 yen each! The company selling the stock, Mizuho Securities, tried to cancel the order, however, a system glitch prevented it from being cancelled. This left the company with an over 40 billion yen loss. The 40,7 billion yen loss, is worth around 460 million dollars, which is an insane amount!
The Tokyo Stock Exchange Admitted to their Fault and gave a compensation
Not much later the Tokyo Stock Exchange admitted that it was their fault. They also acknowledged the system failure in the Tokyo District Court. The court awarded Mizuho a 10.7 billion yen compensation, which is around 120 million dollars. However, this still left Mizuho with a loss of 340 million dollars! As a result of the incident, Takuo Tsurushima the then-president, resigned from his position. The Tokyo Stock Exchange was also ordered, by the Financial Services Agency from Japan, to improve its safety systems and safeguards in trading technology so mistakes like this can’t happen again.
