Text vs numbers — CCA-F Exam Prep

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L0.05|Text vs numbers
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Real story
A massive Excel spreadsheet on a trading floor monitor. One column is highlighted in yellow — it's labeled 'Risk Value' but the cells are formatted as text (left-aligned) instead of numbers (right-aligned). A trader squints at it. JP Morgan logo visible. Dark, tense office.

A spreadsheet at JP Morgan contained a formula error.

Someone had formatted a column as text instead of numbers. The risk model read that column every day. It treated the 'numbers' as labels — ignored them in calculations, used fallback values instead.

For months, the risk model underestimated the bank's exposure. A trader named Bruno Iksil — nicknamed the London Whale — built massive positions that the model said were safe. They weren't.

Cost: $6.2 billion. Because a column was formatted as text.