Chance Bliss

While nobody knows if this is exactly it seems a trader accidentally enter a “B” for billion instead of “M” for million. The result was a massive panic which resulted in an 1000 point drop in the stock market yesterday.

That’s $16 million, NOT $16 billion: Possible trader goof may have sparked 1,000-point Dow swing

My question is why making a trade for a billion versus a million is only only designated by one letter of which is separated only by the letter “N”? This question also goes to one of my biggest pet peeves in pretty much all technical and business writing; abbreviations and acronyms. Unless it is a universal such as Mr. or USA, don’t use it, especially if it’s only pertains to a specific industry.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 7th, 2010 at 6:49 am and is filed under business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.