‘Fat finger’ trade briefly bumps £3bn off Barclays’ value
Barclays’ share price fell 10 per cent yesterday morning after a suspected “fat finger” trade, which temporarily knocked more than £3bn from Barclays value.
Barclays’ share price had fallen almost 10 per cent by 8:05am yesterday morning, according to reports – an unusual event, particularly for a big bank.
After a five-minute pause in trading the share price recovered, and was down just 0.3 per cent by midday.
Trades made in human error, or even by algorithms, are often referred to as “fat fingers”, which is born of the idea that a person’s oversized fingers might cause them to press the wrong button on the keyboard.
“It looks like a fatty,” one City trader told The Times, “someone was obviously in the pub last night.”
The London Stock Exchange confirmed that the sharp drop had triggered a price monitoring extension, whereby the trading of the shares is stopped for five minutes while things settle.