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A Monster $69 Trillion Order Wreaked Havoc On The Stockholm Stock Exchange

Trading was halted in index derivatives on the Stockholm Stock Exchange today after a monster futures order valued at around $69 trillion appeared in the system, according to Swedish business newspaper SvD Näringsliv.

 The “trade” was a buy order for nearly 4.3 billion OMXS30 warrants (valued at nearly 460 trillion kronor), an amount over 131 times Sweden’s GDP. The OMXS30 is the exchange’s flagship stock index, and the error apparently caused enough problems to force a closure of the market.

report in Investment Europe said that despite safeguards, “somehow the order made its way into the order book, causing chaos for traders.”

SvD Näringsliv’s Gustaf Palm reports (via Google Translate):

According to the Exchange spokesman Carl Norell has no order of that size team into the system. Instead, it is about a parsing incurred in exchange system due to a technical error. The order, Norell writes in an email, anullerades, but still remains a problem why the index derivatives market is closed since just before 10 am this morning.