Jardine Matheson briefly loses $41bn in value following mystery trade
Hong Kong-British conglomerate Jardine Matheson briefly lost $41bn (£31.5bn) in its share value today with the company blaming an electronic trading error.
Jardine Matheson’s Singapore-listed shares traded down 83 per cent before rebounding, in what was originally suspected to be a so-called fat-finger trade.
Around 167,500 shares in the company traded at $10.99 versus Wednesday’s closing price of $66.47.
After a review, the Singapore Exchange said there was no basis to cancel the transactions.
“Trading was orderly and there was no sign of manipulation. We have also ascertained that the orders were not due to fat finger errors or any malfunctioning systems on the part of the participants,” it said.
The stock later recovered to trade at $66.80.
“The transaction was divided into 164 trades, suggesting there could be more than a hundred counterparts behind this trade,” said CMC Markets analyst Margaret Yang.
“This makes it an extremely difficult task for the stock exchange to recall or cancel it, and the seller will need to bear the losses,” she said.
Jardine Matheson said in a statement it believed an electronic trading error was the cause.
In 2015 a Deutsche Bank worker accidentally paid $6bn to a single customer as part of a fat finger error while their manager was on holiday.
In 2016 a “flash-crash” in sterling was blamed variously on fat finger errors, inexperienced traders or algorithmic trading.
Jardine Matheson is a 186-year-old conglomerate that is involved in various businesses including financial services, car sales, luxury hotels, property development and food retailing.