Meathead of the Year award.

[Luc1Grunt]

Thank you, thank you. I would like to thank sheer incompetance under pressure for placing myself in a bent over, grab my ankles position. "Buy" button is for buying..."Short" button is for selling short. So...near the close on increasing volume, hitting the short button as opposed to the long button is a beautiful thing! Especially when you wanted long and overnight the stock gets another ugrade. Pre-market looks like a $1600 loss instantly.

Well, I'm sure this George Bush's fault or FEMA or some other evil entity. Laughing at myself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!8O

[robvia]

Don't feel too bad, I bought calls on AAPL just before they reported thinking it was going up. Should have done a straddle. I'm losing $1740 this Friday when the options expire out of the money.
Now I'm waiting for February to end so I can buy the bottom and make it up.

[TonyM]

Thank you, thank you. I would like to thank sheer incompetance under pressure for placing myself in a bent over, grab my ankles position. "Buy" button is for buying..."Short" button is for selling short. So...near the close on increasing volume, hitting the short button as opposed to the long button is a beautiful thing! Especially when you wanted long and overnight the stock gets another ugrade. Pre-market looks like a $1600 loss instantly.

Well, I'm sure this George Bush's fault or FEMA or some other evil entity. Laughing at myself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!8O

It's awful early in the year to claim that title, I'm sure there are many contenders left to give you a run for your money, so to speak.;)

I've had nightmares about hitting the wrong button (I guess I trade in my sleep), I really think that the sell short button should be on the opposite end of the dialog box.

[Luc1Grunt]

2 day trade turned long term play, ha!!! I'll take it with patience as it spans a buck a day...but the capital tied up is a pain. GL on AAPL, I day traded that for the majority of 06 until my strategies started producing smaller gains. Gonna re-look a couple things over the weekend.

[Svenwulf]

February 07, 2007 Morgan Stanley and the Great $10 Bil. Trade Debacle

NYSE Regulation (http://www.nyse.com/regulation/1089235621148.html) fined Morgan Stanley (http://www.morganstanley.com/) $300,000 for a failure to provide sufficient inhibitors and blocks within its trading system that led to a massive botched trade.
According to the regulator, on the morning of September 1, 2004 a Morgan Stanley trader received instructions from a customer to unwind a portion of an existing swap, with an affiliate of the firm acting as the counterparty. To hedge its position, the affiliate took a short position in the shares of common stock underlying the basket. The mistake came about when the trader entered an order to buy 100,000 units of the basket to cover a portion of the affiliate's short position, not realizing that the tool used to create the basket had a built in multiplier of 1,000. The result was a basket with a value of $10.8 billion instead of $10.8 million.
Over 81 million shares with a market value of $875 million were executed before the firm cancelled the order. NYSE claims that the order cause significant market disruption as the accuracy of the erroneous orders was verified.
NYSE charged Morgan Stanley with fault for the error claiming that the order entry system used by the trader had the capability to set trading limits, which would have prevented, or at least limited the impact of the error. The firm neither utilized the functionality nor told the traders that it existed.


Posted by Cory Levine (clevine@cmp.com) at 05:18 PM

[Luc1Grunt]

Thanks Sven, I still think I will puke if this gets through R4......Luckily I'm plus 600 on two others in motion. I should be up 2k on this beast if I had not pressed the wrong button.

[Luc1Grunt]

Good retrace and it is pulling the naz with it. May get out with under a 1k loss for the day on this.

[TonyM]

February 07, 2007 Morgan Stanley and the Great $10 Bil. Trade Debacle

NYSE Regulation (http://www.nyse.com/regulation/1089235621148.html) fined Morgan Stanley (http://www.morganstanley.com/) $300,000 for a failure to provide sufficient inhibitors and blocks within its trading system that led to a massive botched trade.
According to the regulator, on the morning of September 1, 2004 a Morgan Stanley trader received instructions from a customer to unwind a portion of an existing swap, with an affiliate of the firm acting as the counterparty. To hedge its position, the affiliate took a short position in the shares of common stock underlying the basket. The mistake came about when the trader entered an order to buy 100,000 units of the basket to cover a portion of the affiliate's short position, not realizing that the tool used to create the basket had a built in multiplier of 1,000. The result was a basket with a value of $10.8 billion instead of $10.8 million.
Over 81 million shares with a market value of $875 million were executed before the firm cancelled the order. NYSE claims that the order cause significant market disruption as the accuracy of the erroneous orders was verified.
NYSE charged Morgan Stanley with fault for the error claiming that the order entry system used by the trader had the capability to set trading limits, which would have prevented, or at least limited the impact of the error. The firm neither utilized the functionality nor told the traders that it existed.


Posted by Cory Levine (clevine@cmp.com) at 05:18 PM

If I'm that trader, I don't even attempt to explain, I just pack my $hit and leave, visit my old pal JD for a day or two.

[manowarfan1]

Good Luck on that Luc - I figure you have enough good picks that to have something like this really burns you up - but everyonce in a while we need to have something simple happen to us to remind us to be careful. I did the same thing not too long ago - basically paid commission on each end to get out of a loss caused by inattention and an itchy trigger finger

Jeff