Erroneous trade error, symptom of a stodgy Bursa Malaysia

From the Business Times:

Bursa Malaysia Bhd has rejected a request from a market participant to cancel an erroneous trade that caused shares of Kuala Lumpur Kepong Bhd (KLK) to soar yesterday.

Analysts and dealers were stumped when the plantation firm's share price rose 24 per cent to RM17 in the last 10 minutes of trade, on heavy volume, for no apparent reason.

Even a company official seemed surprised by the sudden share movement.

Not long after the market closed, however, Bursa Malaysia said it received a request to cancel a trade for the stock, arising from a "participant's error".

It later told brokers that it had reviewed the request and decided not to approve it.
Dealers believe the dealing error came from a foreign brokerage house.

Bursa Malaysia, in a press statement, said KLK's sudden share price jump was brought about by "matching of market orders at the pre-closing phase of the day".

This resulted in a change in the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index which was not reflected until after the market's close, due to "verification measures" taken on the increase in KLK's share price, it said.

The exchange clarified that the index's closing yesterday was 1,216.45 points.

The huge volume indicates perhaps the dealer bought too many shares, possibly at market price. This could come from a key entry error. For example, say I want to buy 2000 shares, which is 20 x 100. In the box for the order entry, I would need to key in 20. Sometimes I would key in 2000 by accident. This is prone to occur when someone has to key in pre-calculated numbers from a spreadsheet.

It's just not intuitive. If I want to buy 2000 shares, I should put in 2000 in the box right? Bursa should move with the times. They could get rid of the lot system in favor of the US system of buying individual shares. I've always been a fan of dealing with more numbers on the left side of the decimal than right. I think a lot of people would prefer that as well.