It was supposed to be a simple stock transaction for Mizuho Securities, an unlisted brokerage unit of Mizuho Financial Group Inc.---just sell 1 share of J-com Co., a company making its public debut, at 610,000 yen ($5,041). However, someone made a little typo and ended up selling 610,000 shares at one yen (less than a penny a share). The stock sale was 41 times the number of outstanding shares the company owned. Mizuho Securities � a division of the nation’s second-largest bank, Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. lost around US$225 million by the end of the day because of the human error. This could erase Mizuho's profits for the whole fiscal first quarter. Source:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com
