Fat fingers in trading

Having a bad week with 3 fat finger mistakes: wrong size, wrong direction, wrong contract month. Confirmation windows don't do a thing for me. I am curious if I am the only person with this issue or does everyone have fat fingers once in a while?

Stories from execution traders informing portfolio managers that they have a position of 10x size in a stock, shedding a few % would be appreciated too.

 

I have my fair share of fat fingers. If you dont, you dont trade enough.

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Best Response

3 in a week is waay to much. I find they tend to only happen after a very long run of no mistakes, and then as soon as you make one you really make sure you dont have another one for weeks/months.

ive heard of some bad ones, but the best one was when a trader ended up long a huge amount of stock accidentally in the auction and only realized after the close, walked non chalantly to a structured desk and they ended up needing almost that exact amount for one of their product hedges haha.

 

I definitely had a bad week about a month ago. Went about 2 years without a single mistake, and then two, two days in a row. I was like what is wrong with me?! Then I was quadruple checking everything that I was doing. I'm back to how I normally would operate, but still, that week and the next couple were stressful wondering if I was going to make another mistake.

make it hard to spot the general by working like a soldier
 

I've made a few here and there - never too serious so I can usually reverse them with minimal pain - then just report the mistakes for booking and accept the bollocking. One colleague made one and got a bollocking - the stress got to him and he made another and another...didn't end well for him.

Usually mistakes happen when I get too comfortable after a long run with no errors.

 

3 in a week is a lot, as some have said above you should check the process of how you receive trades. When I started trading I had difficulty with fat fingers or trading errors until I figured out the correct process for me.

Also try reading 'The Checklist Manifesto' it's a great book to show how important checklists and 'sanity checks' are to a repeatable process like trading.

 

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