Tel Aviv stock blunder wipes 99.9 per cent off Israel Corp
THE TEL Aviv Stock Exchange, Israel’s major stock market, stopped trading on Sunday after a typing error caused shares in top listed firm Israel Corporation to crash 99.88 per cent.
The mistake, thought to have been caused when a trading clerk accidentally typed in the wrong company to sell shares in, caused the exchange’s top 25 company index the TA-25 to fall 2.5 per cent across the board.
The share price of Israel Corp, the exchange’s third biggest company, fell from $46,385 to $58 a share due to the so-called fat finger trade, which took place across a five minute window at noon on Sunday.
The trades were cancelled at the clerk’s request after the mistake was realised and the market had been shut down.
Officials are now going through the laborious task of cancelling the trades. Sunday is the first day of the trading week in Israel.
The Tel Aviv flash crash mirrors a similar experience on US markets in 2010 when the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged about nine per cent before bouncing back up.