610,000 Shares Each for 1 Yen at TSE

610,000 Shares Each for 1 Yen at TSE (or One for 610,000)

It actually happened that a staff member of Mizuho Securities Co. tried to sell 610,000 shares of a recruitment company for one yen.

It had been intended to be an order to sell one share of the recruitment company for 610,000 yen (roughly 5,000 dollars).

The wrong order was sent electronically from a PC in office of the securities company to the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). But no safeguard or any error prevention schemes worked well.

What is worse, it was found that the staff of the security company who sent the wrong order ignored a warning on the PC screen, since such a warning was very common in daily transactions.

His or her colleagues found the mistake one minute and a half later, but it was too late. The TSE system received it without desired check, and the wrong order was open and accessible by all the traders including many day traders.

People concerned with the financial industry believe the loss incurred by Mizuho Securities could well exceed 30 billion yen (roughly 250 million dollars), because there have not been in fact such a large number of stocks of the recruitment company in the market. The number of the recruitment company’s outstanding shares was and is still merely 14,500.

That was a simple mistake to input two figures into wrong fields: Stock Volume and Unit Price.

This is very akin to applying a method so called selling forward. But, as the above incident tells, it could be a weapon to disrupt economy of a country. If you could successfully place an order of selling 1,000 trillion shares of a very popular company for one dollar, it could trigger a chain of mega confusion.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange, with its recent aggregate market value of 500 trillion yen or more than four trillion dollars, is one of the three most influential money markets in the world, occupying an intermediate position between the New York Stock Exchange (with 13 trillion dollars) and London's City (with three trillion dollars).

But people concerned with TSE seem no to be alerted enough by incidents in September 2001 and July 2005. It is the very thing that has been truly proven.

All I can say for you is “Don’t trust a system until you thoroughly review its codes and operation practices at site by yourself, or don’t trust it at all.”

As for me, I hate to trust figures so called an amount of money.

“DO IT ALL FOR GOD’S GLORY”

Best Gift Intangible, Absolutely

Best Gift Intangible, Absolutely

Ambition might be one of best gifts, especially in the so-called Christmas season.

In 1877, William Smith Clark said, “Boys, be ambitious like this old man!” on his leave from an agricultural school (currently Hokkaido University) in Japan.

He had been invited by then Japanese (Meiji) government, while he was the president of the Massachusetts Agricultural College. He spent only a year in Japan training youth in the northern island Hokkaido, but he has been long respected, literally over centuries beyond the war, by the Japanese people mainly due to his gift, “Boys be ambitious!”　

The next chairman of the Japan Business Federation will be Fujio Mitarai, President & CEO, Canon Inc.

According to Financial Times/ PricewaterhouseCoopers World's Most Respected Companies survey (based on interviews with more than 1,000 respondents who are mainly CEOs across 25 countries), the ranking of World’s Most Respected Business Leaders 2004 was as follows:

1: Bill Gates (Microsoft)
2: Jack Welch (formerly of General Electric)
3: Carlos Ghosn (Nissan)
4: Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway)
5: Michael Dell (Dell)
6: Hiroshi Okuda (Toyota)
7: Jeffrey Immeit (General Electric)
8: Carly Fiorina (Hewlett-Packard)
9: Steve Jobs (Apple)
10: Fujio Mitarai (Canon)

Among these top 10s, three figures are from Japan-based companies. And Mr. Okuda is the incumbent chairman of the Japan Business Federation.

So, there might be no wonder that Mr. Mitarai is going to succeed Mr. Okuda to preside over the one of the most powerful organizations, called Keidan-Ren, in Japan.

However, it is unknown as Mr. Miatari was appreciated so high in 2004 globally as well as in America, he is going to be a leader in Japan in 2006.

After all, we had better give children an intangible gift, such as ambition.

If they end up as a business leader who is usually soon forgotten or an educator who has a chance to be commemorated over centuries, it is better than ending up as a wirepuller behind a scam or atrocity.

“HE GIVES GENEROUSLY TO THE NEEDY”

Tariq Aziz and Saddam Hussein to be Alive

Tariq Aziz and Saddam Hussein to be Alive

It was an incident in 1980’s. An innocent Japanese businessman was arrested in Iraq and put into a hopeless prison.

His family and his employer in Japan tried hard to rescue him.

The police of Saddam Hussein’s government accused the businessman of using bribery in order to make a favorable impression on a certain Iraqi official by sending a gift to his daughter hospitalized for a difficult illness.

However, the gift was from pure sympathy and for friendship, which had been beforehand confirmed legally safe by his local colleague who was in question.

Eventually, the family had successfully managed to appeal to then Prime Minister of Japan, Yasuhiro Nakasone, who was regarded as a friend of Ronald Reagan’s, then U.S. President.

And, to cut a long story short, then Japanese foreign minister Shintarou Abe, during his visit to Iraq, asked then Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz to release the innocent businessman. It was just a simple conversation in a car from an airport to Baghdad.

Accordingly, the businessman was released and came back to office in Tokyo, in one piece. He and his wife expressed their thanks to the prime minister in person. And then, the story has been long forgotten, while Mr. Nakasone alone is still active.

I don’t know if this event was carried out all under the gaze of Allah.

However, it is an undeniable fact that both Tariq Aziz and Saddam Hussein are alive though being put under arrest. And I don’t think it is possible unless Allah takes something into His account.

Of course, I am not in a position to inquire of Saddam Hussein as to whether he had been informed of the Japanese businessman to be liberated by Tariq Aziz, on one day in 1980’s.

Anyway Christmas is near. Any emancipation could be a good gift to human beings blindly struggling in this terrible world.

“WE DID NOT GIVE IN TO THEM FOR A MINUTE”

A Story on a Xmas Gift

A Story on a Xmas Gift

Once I heard a story about a poor boy on a street.

He was shouting “Give me a dollar! I will give you back two dollars!”

A poor boy on a street in America was endlessly shouting “Give me one. I will give back to you two.”

Of course, most of citizens would neglect him.

Otherwise, they might hate to see such a poor trick on a street of America.

But, so long as not in conflict with law, we may give him three dollars, saying “One for your reclamation. Two for what you will return to me. So, take three.”

I don’t know if Jesus Christ would be glad with this charity.

Anyhow, Christmas is near.

“WHO KNOWS THE MIND OF THE LORD”