Everbright Securities - already banned from raising fresh funds due to ongoing investigations - has 'scapegoated' a system malfunction for its causing a 5.6% instantaneous spike in the Chinese stock market on Friday morning.
However, while they assure investors that this was 'not' human error, the FT notes, analysts said the trading error was a sign of the industry’s shortcomings as it tried to shift from its old model of managing IPOs and retail sales towards more sophisticated operations such as ETFs, "they don't really have the talent pools or the systems to deal with this new, innovative type of business."
However, it didn't take long for the brokerage to screw up yet again by apologizing Monday for 'mistakenly' selling 10Y Chinese government bonds at 25bps above market yields. But apart from that, Everbright seems tip-top, though one analyst familiar with the sector summed it up perfectly we suspect - "the whole system is still pretty incapable."
A computer system malfunction, rather than human error, has been identified as the cause of Friday’s trading problems at Everbright Securities that caused a flash rally in the Shanghai equity market.
On Friday morning the Shanghai Composite index jumped 5.6 per cent in a matter of seconds, amid a series of market rumours and speculation over a possible erroneous “fat finger trade”. The index ended the day with a loss of 0.6 per cent.
...
Everbright attempted to buy Rmb23.4bn ($3.8bn) of shares, successfully completing trades for Rmb7.3bn of them.
...
Analysts said the trading error was a sign of the industry’s shortcomings as it tried to shift from its old model of managing initial public offerings and retail sales towards more sophisticated operations such as exchange traded funds.
“They don’t really have the talent pools or the systems to deal with this new, innovative type of business,” said one analyst familiar with the sector. “The whole system is still pretty incapable.”
...
The China Securities Regulatory Commission said it had launched a formal investigation into the problems at Everbright, which could lead to “severe punishment” depending on the results.
...
Shares in Everbright Securities have been suspended since Friday. The company said trading will resume on Tuesday.
The CSRC said over the weekend that the Everbright mishap appeared to be an isolated incident...
...
“The whole securities and futures industry must see it as an example and learn from the lesson to plug the leaks, perfect the system and prevent similar problems from happening again,” it said in a statement.
...
Everbright was hit with a fresh blunder on Monday morning, when it accidentally sold 10-year government bonds at far below the market price.
Perhaps Neverbright Securities would be a better name?