$444B 'Fat Finger' Trade Crashed Stocks.Now Citigroup Is Paying the Price

Re:$444B 'Fat Finger' Trade Crashed Stocks.Now Citigroup Is ... by bell-cot on Tuesday May 28, 2024 @01:34PM (#40503242)

> Instead of $58 million, the basket created had a value of $444 billion. A warning sign popped up on his screen but he failed to heed it, the agency said. Citigroup’s controls kicked in and blocked most of that sum from being traded, but a big chunk still made it onto the markets. Roughly $189 billion of the basket went to an algorithm that then sliced it into portions to be sold throughout the day, the FCA said.

If your "controls" can only turn a $444B oopsie into a $189B oopsie...maybe you need tighter controls?

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Re:$444B 'Fat Finger' Trade Crashed Stocks.Now Citigroup Is ... by strangattractor on Tuesday May 28, 2024 @01:46PM (#40503389)

Begs the question - why does it take 2 people to launch an ICBM but only one to make a $444 billion trade?

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Re:$444B 'Fat Finger' Trade Crashed Stocks.Now Citigroup Is ... by bell-cot on Tuesday May 28, 2024 @02:12PM (#40503696)

Perhaps the USAF nuclear launch system designers were relatively decent humans, who actually cared about the effects of their actions upon the world?

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Re:$444B 'Fat Finger' Trade Crashed Stocks.Now Citigroup Is ... by throwaway1105q on Tuesday May 28, 2024 @01:53PM (#40503466)

This begs the more important question... Why does it take only one more person to end the world than to change some numbers in excel?

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Re:$444B 'Fat Finger' Trade Crashed Stocks.Now Citigroup Is ... by Arnt on Tuesday May 28, 2024 @03:56PM (#40504899)

Capitalism. Seriously. Each owner decides how to allocate resources. Citigroup decided to let one person make wide-ranging decisions.

Wonder how much the loss was. Surely more than $78 million. Citigroup doesn't say the policy has changed (substantively) so I guess the advantages of this… uh… nimbleness must be in nine digits too.

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Re:$444B 'Fat Finger' Trade Crashed Stocks.Now Citigroup Is ... by throwaway1105q on Tuesday May 28, 2024 @05:35PM (#40505870)

My point was that 2 is really not enough to end the world. Damn their money, it's their problem. Launching nukes should require 200, not 2.

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Re:$444B 'Fat Finger' Trade Crashed Stocks.Now Citigroup Is ... by Arnt on Wednesday May 29, 2024 @05:07AM (#40509948)

Suppose it actually required twenty, or 200. In that case, would the relevant organisation publish the truth or rather lie and say "two"? I think lying makes a lot of sense. Telling the truth would be like saying "go ahead and kill the most accessible of these 20/200 people".

So I don't think the "2" is very likely to be true.

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Re:$444B 'Fat Finger' Trade Crashed Stocks.Now Citigroup Is ... by throwaway1105q on Wednesday May 29, 2024 @05:36AM (#40510123)

It could be 200 out of 20k, or something like that. Though yes, you're right, lying makes sense.

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Re:$444B 'Fat Finger' Trade Crashed Stocks.Now Citigroup Is ... by appplication on Wednesday May 29, 2024 @09:24AM (#40511732)

It takes more than two. Two is enough to launch, but other silos have override authority. So if two people went renegade they could still be shut down.

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