10月7日晨，亞洲外匯交易市場英鎊對美元匯率瞬時跌至1比1.1841，跌幅達6%。外匯市場一片嘩然，不清楚英鎊為何突然大幅跳水，因為只有重大事件才可能造成如此大的跌幅。多名外匯分析師認為，多種因素疊加造成這次閃跌，而罪魁禍首可能是所謂的“胖手指”、即交易員鍵盤操作失誤。

2015年，德意志銀行外匯部門的一名初級交易員將一訂單中的“凈值”錯誤處理為“總額”，令德意志銀行向一家美國的對沖基金客戶白白送出了60億美元。

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.
“胖手指失誤”指的是金融市場中的鍵盤輸入錯誤，比如股票市場或者外匯交易市場。交易員在輸入購買或者出售指令時出現非常大的偏差，比如交易的股票或合約有誤，價格有誤，或者出現其他的輸入錯誤。

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.
在指令到達交易市場前，交易所內的自動系統會發現胖手指失誤，或者這類指令會在實現之前被取消。下達的錯誤指令量級越大，被取消的可能就越大，因為有可能指令涉及的股票數額比市場上可用的股票數額還要多。

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.
胖手指失誤是交易指令電子化處理的產物，這要求所有的細節都通過鍵盤輸入實現。在交易電腦化之前，錯誤的交易指令被稱為“錯誤交易”，在進行之前就得以取消。而通過計算機輸入的錯誤指令更難取消，有時根本無法取消。

（中國日報網英語點津 yaning）