英语点津：都是“胖手指”惹的祸？A fat-finger

10月7日晨，亚洲外汇交易市场英镑对美元汇率瞬时跌至1比1.1841，跌幅达6%。外汇市场一片哗然，不清楚英镑为何突然大幅跳水，因为只有重大事件才可能造成如此大的跌幅。多名外汇分析师认为，多种因素叠加造成这次闪跌，而罪魁祸首可能是所谓的“胖手指”、即交易员键盘操作失误。

2015年，德意志银行外汇部门的一名初级交易员将一订单中的“净值”错误处理为“总额”，令德意志银行向一家美国的对冲基金客户白白送出了60亿美元。

A fat-finger error is a keyboard input error in the financial markets such as the stock market or foreign exchange market whereby an order to buy or sell is placed of far greater size than intended, for the wrong stock or contract, at the wrong price, or with any number of other input errors.

“胖手指失误”指的是金融市场中的键盘输入错误，比如股票市场或者外汇交易市场。交易员在输入购买或者出售指令时出现非常大的偏差，比如交易的股票或合约有误，价格有误，或者出现其他的输入错误。

Automated systems within trading houses may catch fat-finger errors before they reach the market or such orders may be cancelled before they can be fulfilled. The larger the order, the more likely it is to be cancelled as it may be an order larger than the amount of stock available in the market.

在指令到达交易市场前，交易所内的自动系统会发现胖手指失误，或者这类指令会在实现之前被取消。下达的错误指令量级越大，被取消的可能就越大，因为有可能指令涉及的股票数额比市场上可用的股票数额还要多。

Fat-finger errors are a product of the electronic processing of orders which requires details to be input using keyboards. Before trading was computerised, erroneous orders were known as "out-trades" which could be cancelled before proceeding. Erroneous orders placed using computers may be harder or impossible to cancel.

胖手指失误是交易指令电子化处理的产物，这要求所有的细节都通过键盘输入实现。在交易电脑化之前，错误的交易指令被称为“错误交易”，在进行之前就得以取消。而通过计算机输入的错误指令更难取消，有时根本无法取消。