A "fat finger" error at the Tokyo stock exchange Wednesday morning caused orders amounting to 67.78 trillion yen ($617 billion) to be canceled, the London Evening Standard reports.
According to the report, the mistake is "thought to be the most extreme example of a trader in financial markets inputting hopelessly wrong figures while working under intense pressure."
The largest single order, 1.96 billion Toyota shares worth 12.68 trillion yen, was one of 42 canceled transactions, Bloomberg said.
The so-called "fat-finger" trade refers to a human error, like pressing the wrong key, rather than a bug in the trading algorithm.
The Evening Standard quoted Gavin Parry, managing director at Hong Kong-based brokerage Parry International Trading, as saying: “It’s not rocket science that there was a fat finger here, but it reopens the questions about accountability.”