All In A Day's Trade: $20,000 Slap For A Few Errant Zeros
The Sunday Age
Sunday August 24, 2008
IT WAS near the close of trading on July 27 last year when a client of CommSec decided to sell 2500 shares in Westfield Group.
No great drama at that stage but it soon developed into one helluva kerfuffle as the client mistakenly entered the order as 25,002,500 shares at a selling price of $19.07.On that day, CommSec's vetting process didn't work quite as planned.When the client lodged the order it was diverted to the broker's derivatives trading representative, who approved it and entered in into the exchange's trading platform.In little more than one minute, buyers put their hands up for 1,003,752 of the shares and shortly thereafter CommSec cancelled the order before more damage was done.Just after the market closed the exchange cancelled part of the order that was entered in error.The exchange's disciplinary tribunal later got in on the act and it has now decided that CommSec contravened the fair and orderly trading rules.After considering everything, including that CommSec handled 91,900 trades on a day of very heavy trading, and that the offending order was cancelled 75 seconds after being placed, the broker was fined 20 grand.Navel gazingCEREBRAL fund manager Kerr Neilson has described Platinum Asset Management's performance as adequate rather than good for the June year. Reporting a $162 million profit to its near 29,000 shareholders - that's what happens when you float through CommSec - Neilson was not above a bit of self-criticism."As you might imagine with 23 analysts working on quite discrete industries and companies, the challenge is to bring order to diverse sets of information and understanding, and to then synthesise it into coherent portfolios comprising individual stocks," he said."Another hurdle for a fund manager that follows a stock-picking approach - as opposed to hugging the in-crowd - is to avoid acting too early."We have an excellent record of anticipating emerging themes but need to improve our degree of anticipation," he said. Earning a crustTWO Domino's Pizza directors peeled off $5.3 million of scrip the day after the company reported a 38% earnings rise. Head pizza maker Donald Meij exercised 345,000 options at $2.20 apiece and sold the same number for $3.20. Director Grant Bourke offloaded 1.3 million shares at $3.20 a share (compared with a $3.55 last sale price the day before the result). Buying on the day was Perpetual, which now has 5.6% of the outfit.
© 2008 The Sunday Age