From DAILYFINANCE.COM:
… CNBC, citing multiple sources, reported that a single trader at banking giant Citigroup made a human error, possibly by erroneously entering the value of a single trade. Such errors are known on Wall Street as “fat finger” trades, because the error can be a simple as a trader pressing the wrong button.
CNBC’s David Faber reported that the trader entered an order for a so-called E-mini — an S&P futures contract — at 16 billion units when it should have been 16 million. Citigroup said it was investigating, but had not immediately found evidence of such an error…
The problem is that in this era of high-frequency, automated trading, such a single human error could have catastrophic consequences. Add fears over Europe, and you have a recipe for disaster. Gerard Cassidy, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, told The Wall Street Journal that a drop of nearly 1,000 points is “people jumping out of windows” territory…
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