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.
Fat fingers totally happen, the question is if you then catch it immediately or lack the attention to detail.
I have my fair share of fat fingers. If you dont, you dont trade enough.
Happens but 3 in a week is a bit much. I always eyeball the total consideration number before routing, you can tell right away if it doesn't make sense.
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.
3 in a week is way too many... I had 2 in a month once and that was due to trying to do too many things at once.
You should really try to figure out why the errors happened and whether the process can be improved.
I know it sound stupid but; sleep.
3 in a week is a lot. Write stuff on sticky notes maybe? It certainly helped me keep track of things and it helps clear out the other noise in your brain.
Ouch.
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.
Bump
I second the suggestion for sticky notes. They've been extremely helpful to me (although I'm pretty new).
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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