One major meltdown at the Tokyo Stock Exchange could be considered a misfortune, as Oscar Wilde might have put it, but two serious problems seem careless.
At a time when the markets are winding down - two weeks ago staff would have been looking forward to enjoying end-of-year parties - the exchange's management is instead scrabbling to convince those with a stake in the organisation that its recently discovered flaws are not of the fatal variety.
On December 8, eyebrows were raised when 610,000 shares in recruitment firm J-Com were sold at one yen (six cents) each. Surprise turned to incredulity when it became clear that there had been an error and the deal should instead have been one share being sold for 610,000 yen.
That glitch, caused initially by a dealer's input error, happened just five weeks after the exchange suspended all trading on November 1 when a computer system malfunctioned.
'We are confident we will be able to find the problems and repair them and we are determined to make sure nothing like this ever happens again,' said Mitsuo Miwa, the exchange's public relations manager.
'We have been watching the situation closely and we do not think there has been much of an impact. Prices are still going up and trading has been active, but we do understand the market's confidence has been damaged and we are sorry about that.'
The latest problem cost Mizuho Securities some 40 billion yen after a dealer, who is reported to be a 24-year-old female broker, reversed the price of the J-Com stock and the number being sold.
