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British Kitchen Company at Center of Momentary Market Panic

Momentary Market Chaos Was Caused by a British Kitchen Company

(Bloomberg) --

It’s not every day that an unassuming kitchen fitter is at the center of market panic.

An error calculating the price of Howden Joinery Group Plc, a London-based supplier of kitchen cabinets, was the reason for the Stoxx 600 index’s fleeting 3.5% jump in early trading on Wednesday, according to a spokesman for the index calculator’s parent company, Deutsche Boerse AG. The benchmark briefly showed its biggest intraday gain of 2019 after the glitch, with the Stoxx 600 Industrial Goods & Services sub-index spiking a whopping 37%.

Howden accounts for just 0.04% of the benchmark, versus its largest constituent, Swiss consumer staples giant Nestle SA, which has a 3.4% weighting, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

But while Howden might not be the first name on stock pickers’ lips, it does have prestige elsewhere. It was awarded a Royal Warrant of Appointment in 2015, meaning the British monarchy’s Sunday roast dinners may well be prepared in a Howden kitchen.

British Kitchen Company at Center of Momentary Market Panic

The glitch has now been corrected, and the Stoxx 600 is trading 1.3% lower. Howden Joinery shares, the cause of the panic, are down 0.9%.

To contact the reporter on this story: Joe Easton in London at jeaston7@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Beth Mellor at bmellor@bloomberg.net, Paul Jarvis

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.