Fat Finger Syndrome

When you press 'sell' instead of 'buy' or vice versa.

Yesterday, an unnamed trader at Japanese investment house Mizuho Securities, mistakenly placed an order to sell 610,000 J-Com shares at 1 yen each. Read more here.

The financial services watchdog in Tokyo is investigating the damage caused by a typing error that led Mizuho Securities - one of Japan's biggest brokerage firms - to lose at least 27bn yen (£128m). And here.

Over the summer I read in Malaysian news that some CIMB trader made the same mistake and I was like "D'oh, how can anyone be so blur?" I didn't know that accidentally doing something stupid like this would be a worldwide syndrome. Think about the silliest and most mindless thing that someone could ever do and at the expense of belittling my fellow mamak-loving friends, you have to admit that there's something inside you which will scream Malaysia Boleh!

I did a secret mental somersault and two handstands when I read this bit of news today. I guess we're not as stupid as we think we are.