The nation’s third-largest stock yesterday tumbled almost 10 percent in minutes and lost US$3 billion of its market value due to errors made when placing orders, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said.
The apparent “fat finger” episode — in which a trader hits the wrong number on a keyboard — left Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) down 8.23 percent to NT$106 at the close.
A spate of orders culminated in a 15.2 million-share closing auction, a trade valued at more than US$55 million, Bloomberg News said.
The stock’s average daily trading volume since September last year was about 2.9 million shares.
The TAIEX, which was up as much as 0.6 percent earlier in the day, erased all its gains at the close.
Formosa Petrochemical makes up 3.1 percent of the benchmark index.
The exchange said the brokerage responsible must apply to it to correct its error.
There have been a number of “fat finger” errors in financial markets worldwide.
In October 2014, hundreds of billions of US dollars worth of stock orders in some of Japan’s biggest firms had to be canceled, possibly because of a “fat finger” error.
In October 2015, a junior banker at Deutsche Bank AG accidentally transferred US$6 billion to a single hedge fund customer in a “fat finger” trade, according to the Financial Times.
The money was repaid the same day.
“I suspect some investors who bet on a lower index simply wanted to dump the [Formosa Petrochemical] stock to push down the broader market ahead of the settlement of March futures contracts today,” KGI Securities Co (凱基證券) analyst Phil Chu (朱有志) said.
“It could be just for trading purposes and have nothing to do with fundamentals, since other petrochemical heavyweights still moved higher,” Chu said.
In the petrochemical sector, shares in Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑) rose 1.43 percent to close at NT$106.50, and Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp (台灣化學纖維) gained 0.45 percent to close at NT$111.00.
Additional reporting by CNA
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) today announced that his company has selected "Beitou Shilin" in Taipei for its new Taiwan office, called Nvidia Constellation, putting an end to months of speculation. Industry sources have said that the tech giant has been eyeing the Beitou Shilin Science Park as the site of its new overseas headquarters, and speculated that the new headquarters would be built on two plots of land designated as "T17" and "T18," which span 3.89 hectares in the park. "I think it's time for us to reveal one of the largest products we've ever built," Huang said near the
China yesterday announced anti-dumping duties as high as 74.9 percent on imports of polyoxymethylene (POM) copolymers, a type of engineering plastic, from Taiwan, the US, the EU and Japan. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s findings conclude a probe launched in May last year, shortly after the US sharply increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, computer chips and other imports. POM copolymers can partially replace metals such as copper and zinc, and have various applications, including in auto parts, electronics and medical equipment, the Chinese ministry has said. In January, it said initial investigations had determined that dumping was taking place, and implemented preliminary
Intel Corp yesterday reinforced its determination to strengthen its partnerships with Taiwan’s ecosystem partners including original-electronic-manufacturing (OEM) companies such as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電). “Tonight marks a new beginning. We renew our new partnership with Taiwan ecosystem,” Intel new chief executive officer Tan Lip-bu (陳立武) said at a dinner with representatives from the company’s local partners, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the US chip giant’s presence in Taiwan. Tan took the reins at Intel six weeks ago aiming to reform the chipmaker and revive its past glory. This is the first time Tan
RSS