How To Hold Guitar With Big Belly? Trust The Answer

Ah, the problem with the old fat fingers. Yes, that happens to the best of us. Not all guitarists have Jimi Hendrix’s long, limber fingers.

Players with chunky hands may find some guitar styles too small for them. Playing a guitar that is too small for you will inhibit technique, it may even stop you from playing altogether.

Even if it’s the best electric guitar ever made, it won’t feel good if it’s too small.

Using the correct size guitar is important to improve muscle memory and coordination.

Wide neck guitars are the best choice for players with thick fingers.

Wide neck guitars are especially good for players with large fingers, which can get in the way when playing chords on a standard guitar neck.

I tested 9 guitars and found that the best wide neck electric guitar for fat fingers is the Fender Player Stratocaster.

This is the most popular and widely used guitar among beginner to intermediate players. It has a comfortable neck that accommodates fat fingers and its body size is suitable for most players.

The Fender Player Stratocaster is an incredibly well-made guitar that will accompany you for the rest of your life.

The Ibanez AS73 Artcore was also a good choice, check out our Ibanez AS73 Artcore review!

The Gibson Les Paul Standard, Fender Player Stratocaster, Ibanez RG321MH and Gretsch Streamliner are examples of excellent electric guitars for people with larger fingers.

They have wider frets that make it easier for you to play chords and solos on the guitar.

This also means they’re easier to transport too, which is great for musicians on the go.

The Fender Player Stratocaster is a fantastic pro-quality guitar with a nut width large enough to accommodate large-handed players.

nut width:

Guitarists with large hands or fat fingers should pay attention to the nut width of a guitar before buying it. The saddle width measurement accurately describes how wide the neck is. Guitarists with large hands should avoid a thin neck.

Here are the average nut width measurements for each company:

Company width (in inches) Gibson: 1.695 inches Ibanez: 1.692 inches PRS: 1.687 inches Fender: 1.66 inches

This shows that Gibson, Ibanez and PRS guitars favor wide neck designs.

Read on for our full lineup of the best wide-neck electric guitars for fat fingers.

This article only deals with electric guitars. Some acoustic guitars are also great for large hands. Classical guitar models are also a viable option. If you’re looking for an acoustic guitar for players with large hands, check out our other guides.

Best wide neck electric guitar for fat fingers in our tests

9 Best Wide Neck Electric Guitars for Fat Fingers Reviewed in Detail

Hey players! Do you have big hands? The Fender Player Strat is the wide neck guitar for you. Its huge, comfortable neck and no-frills controls make playing the guitar a dream.

The Fender Player Strat is the ax of choice for today’s modern guitarist. With a unique blend of traditional features and modern refinements, it will meet the needs of any musician. With its comfortable body design, easy-to-play neck, and versatile tone-shaping controls, the Player Stratocaster is the perfect instrument for any playing style.

This is a serious guitar for serious guitarists, big fingers or not. Stratocasters are great guitars for any guitarist. Their design has been in use for over 70 years with no sign of irrelevance.

It has an incredibly versatile tone that makes it easy to find the sound you’re looking for. Not many guitars are as flexible as this one. Its versatility comes from its 3 pickups and flexible electronics. With two tone controls and a volume, there’s a decent amount of independence when it comes to shaping the pickup tone.

The wide maple fretboard is brilliantly smooth and accommodates larger hands. The maple neck and body give this versatile guitar a resonant and rich tone.

It has decent string spacing that keeps even short fat fingers from getting tangled. Slightly more space than other Fender models offers an advantage here.

The sound quality is excellent. We particularly liked the neck and bridge pickups, but the middle one was also fantastic quality. We chose this as our best wide neck guitar because they are reliable instruments.

A Fender Stratocaster is the benchmark for professional guitar quality. There are many Fender Stratocaster ranges, from the Player series to Vintage, American Performer or more. Other Fender models are also great for players with large hands. Their Jazzmasters have a large scale, as do their baritone guitars.

This is also relatively lightweight, check out our best post on lightweight guitars for similar instruments.

advantages

Fender construction and sound quality

Top-class pickups

Super flexible sound

Broad neck

Disadvantages

Maple fretboard is not for everyone

Check the price on Amazon

The Ibanez Gax30 is a great wide neck guitar for any beginner or intermediate player. Ibanez Guitars is a company that has always been about making the best.

This kit has everything you need to get started and is perfect for beginners.

With its sleek looks, powerful Infinity R pickups, and wide string spacing, any thick-fingered musician or music lover would be proud to own one.

Thanks to its wide, thin neck shape and large string spacing, the Ibanez Gax30 guitar is the perfect electric guitar for players with thick fingers. Its C-shaped neck has a glossy finish that makes it easy to play.

The Gax30 guitar is lightweight, has a natural wood finish with a wild cherry body, and comes with quality steel strings that won’t break for a while.

This guitar sounds great and looks just as good. It has a simple electronic design with a single volume and tone control, bridge and neck pickup. It has a rich sound with a decent tone.

This might be the best guitar in the budget category. The neck pickup was a little thin compared to most, but warm enough.

They may not compete as well with the more expensive instruments like Fenders, PRS or Gibson, but they offer excellent value for money.

These make great beginner guitars. We particularly liked the percussive sound achieved by muting the strings.

You will be amazed by the quality offered at this price.

advantages

Payable

Two warm humbuckers

Disadvantages

smooth neck

No tremolo

Mediocre bridge

Check the price on Amazon

If you love the sound of vintage guitars but hate the weight and cost, you’re in luck!

Modeled after the famous Gibson Les Paul model, these wide neck electric guitars are 1/10 the price.

The Epiphone Les Paul is a lightweight, powerful wide-neck guitar that features a poplar body with a sleek look thanks to the vintage worn finish and no binding to the neck or body.

The neck width makes it easy for players with thick fingers to hold a bar chord. The rosewood fingerboard had no buzz, which is good for guitars in this price range.

Its 650R and 700T humbucking pickups give it an authentic vintage rocker tone. You will never miss this classic tone. Its humbuckers handle saturation and distortion well, with a direct, transient attack and a long, growling sustain.

The fretboard is wider than the average guitar, accommodating players with larger hands. It has more space than the average guitar.

This Epiphone LP Electric Guitar is a quality instrument capable of bringing out the best in your playing. The Epiphone Les Paul Custom is a similar guitar model that could be great for wide hands and is also one of the best guitars for beginners.

With a wide neck for fat fingers and great tone and playability, this is what you’ve been looking for. It’s a dream come true.

advantages

Long, wide neck

Fat humbucker pickups

Neat vote

Disadvantages

Slightly hissing pickups

Check the price on Amazon

Whether you’re a seasoned musician or just starting out, the PRS SE Custom 24 guitar was made for you. Crafted with precision and care, this beautiful instrument is the perfect choice for any player. Check out the clear audio and versatile design for the best possible gaming experience.

The PRS SE Custom 24 guitar is a professional instrument for the big-handed player. It is made from maple and mahogany, has a sleek tone and features the signature PRS tremolo, headstock and neck.

The 24 frets are deep and wide, easily accommodating larger hands. The double cutaway also provides full access to the fretboard. It has the PRS sustain and clarity you need to bring your music to life. With its solid mahogany body, no annoying electronics and its elegant appearance, it is perfect for the job. Whether you’re recording or just jamming in your living room, this guitar is a great fit.

The 1.68″ nut width makes for a comfortable playing experience for big hands, coupled with the PRS signature neck shape.

The sound is as beautiful as it looks, which is stunning. This guitar features PRS80 and 15 pickups. The coil tapping function makes it possible to split the humbuckers into their individual single coils.

This is a futuristic feature that offers a tremendous amount of sonic possibilities. This is essentially a single coil and humbucking guitar in one!

This guitar plays very well with excellent dynamic range and fret response. If you are passionate about playing the guitar, it reflects your interest and deep love for the guitar.

I love PRS guitars and I’m sure most players would too! I think this might be the best guitar for metal players with big hands.

The SE Custom 24 is the perfect guitar for players who want PRS quality and performance but don’t want to spend a fortune. This vintage-inspired instrument is at home in any style of music, from classic rock to country. If you’ve been looking for the best SE guitar on the market, your search ends here.

advantages

Incredibly smooth look and feel

Stellar sound quality

Amazing neck

Check the price on Amazon

The Gretsch Streamliner embodies everything great about vintage Gretsch guitars. Inspired by the original design and updated to create a truly modern instrument, the Streamliner is a stunning guitar with a thin U-profile neck shape, an anchored Adjusto-Matic bridge and a Bigsby B70 vibrato tailpiece.

Gretsch Streamliner is one of the best guitars for people with big hands or wide fingers. Lightweight and easy to use, don’t miss out on this hollow body guitar. The fretboard felt very wide and expansive, making it easy to fret the strings and hold chords.

These beautiful guitars feature Gretsch’s legendary Broad’Tron pickups with a bright, twangy tone with crisp mids. This is great for rock, blues, and jazz players. They sound almost like acoustic guitars when used with a bright tone.

These certainly have an eye-catching look. When I went to the guitar store, these drew me the most.

There’s something about the shiny Bigsby bridge and unusual metallic pickups that give it a very desirable look. These fit older styles of music better than contemporary genres.

This is a hollow body guitar, so it won’t work particularly well for metal or high gain music. It has the same problems as an acoustic guitar. The hollow body would be susceptible to feedback in loud amplification situations.

advantages

Bigsby Bridge is great for pitch bends

Retro pickups

Disadvantages

Vulnerable to feedback

Check the price on Amazon

This Epiphone SG Special has a classic 1960’s SG look, sound and feel.

This guitar features a poplar body and mahogany veneer with a vintage distressed finish. The bolt-on mahogany neck features a tapered 1960’s D-profile with medium jumbo frets for large hands.

With these qualities and its humbucking pickups with ceramic magnets, this guitar will resonate with you for years to come. The mahogany body veneer provides warm mid-range sustain.

It features a 650R in the bridge position and a hotter 700T as the bridge pickup. It features the traditional master volume and master tone controls with a 3-way selector switch. The pickups responded well to distorted amps with a tight growl.

The bridge circuit has a brighter, harsher tone that suits high-gain guitar solo tones. The neck pickup is slightly darker and warmer. Both pickups can be combined with the selector switch to create a hybrid tone.

These have a classic rock tone popularized by bands in the 60’s and 70’s. Just as at home as a lead guitar as in the rhythm position. These are similar to Les Paul models but better suited to heavier music. Les Pauls are comparable in quality and price, with the main difference being body design and pickup style.

They are quite different sounding guitars. If you have more classic than heavy tastes, a Les Paul might be better than an SG.

Its LockTone and Tune-o-Matic bridge and die-cast tuners had accurate and lasting tuning. The tuning pegs turned easily and had no resistance.

This is one of the cheaper guitars, but it still had brilliant construction and sound quality. These are ideal for players with large hands thanks to the double cutaway and comfortable fretboard. If you are looking for a cheaper version of the legendary Gibson SG then this is a great choice.

advantages

Crisp humbuckers

Great action and feeling

Disadvantages

Unusually light

Check the price on Amazon

Turn up the volume and rock the house at your next gig with this metal-shredding guitar.

This beauty has 24 frets for extended solos and high-performance humbuckers that will please even the most stubborn eardrums.

The Meranti body and Wizard III maple neck ensure a comfortable experience for you and your listeners. This guitar is perfect for beginners looking to experiment with different playing styles and seasoned pros alike.

The Ibanez RGA42FM brings the world of shreds to fat fingertips!

Play heavy metal guitar with the Ibanez RGA42FM. This ax has a deep cutaway and is one of the fastest necks you’ll ever play. The deep cutaway makes left-hand shredding and typing a breeze. For practice and performance, these make the grade.

The high output pickups make this a perfect guitar for distorted tones. This guitar begs to be hooked up to a bunch of distortion pedals and a scorching amp.

They maintain a deep punch but have a bright, cutting tone with a rich high end. The pickups can be switched in between with a 3-way selector switch.

There is only one tone and volume control, so the pickups cannot be shaped individually.

Like many Ibanez guitars, this one has 24 frets, which is larger than most. This gives lead guitarists some extra notes to play with for their face-melting solos. Those extra frets make a big difference and make this guitar well suited for metal and heavy music.

The neck is also one of the widest on this list, with plenty of room for big fingers. Get shredded with an Ibanez.

advantages

heavy metal beast

24 frets & deep cutaway – ideal for shredding

Pickup with high output power

Disadvantages

Occasional eating

No tremolo

Check the price on Amazon

This guitar features a double cutaway body with an all-maple design. Featuring a 22-fret rosewood fretboard. This guitar features the ART1 bridge and ACH humbuckers for a full tonal range.

The Ibanez Artcore is a beautiful guitar, pure and simple. With its rich tone and excellent sustain, the Artcore is perfect for jazz, blues, folk and country music. Coupled with its sleek design and beautiful finish options, the guitar has a great look that will last.

We thought this would be a little thinner for wide necks, but still adequate for larger hands as it has an acoustic guitar feel thanks to its hollow body.

This is similar to the Gretsch Streamliner but with a simpler bridge (no Bigsby). They have a similar tone, but the Gretsch is a little more interesting. I think this is reflected in the lower price that will be more affordable for advanced guitarists.

It sounded sweet when plugged into a retro blues amp like a Fender Twin Reverb. Using a vintage tube amp captures the authentic tone of guitars from the style’s era.

Hollowbody and archtop guitars are the ancestors of today’s modern styles. This type of guitar even predates the Stratocaster by about 30 years.

This guitar features separate tone and volume controls for each pickup, giving more room for tone shaping. The bridge pickup is bright, thin and twangy. The neck pickup is warmer and rounder, less cutting.

The control knobs and selector switch offer a wide range of possibilities when it comes to combining and filtering the pickups.

The Ibanez Artcore Hollowbody offers all the luxury of a high-end guitar without the high-end price.

Would you like to experience the perfect blend of form and function? Get an Artcore today!

advantages

Rich resonant tone

Versatile sound

Light body

Disadvantages

The hollow body is susceptible to feedback

This is an affordable version of the legendary Fender Jazzmaster. These guitars are known to be ideal for players with large hands due to their larger necks. The Jazzmaster uses a larger nut width and longer neck to create a larger, more comfortable fingerboard.

Jazzmasters are one of my favorite guitars, maybe because my hands are on the heavier side. Maybe because they have such a killer tone.

The Jazzmaster uses soap bar single coil pickups with an interesting split tone circuit. This guitar features Fender-designed alnico pickups for that iconic vintage tone.

These are ideal for playing surf rock, blues, jazz and shoegaze music.

Designed 100% by Fender, the Squire Jazzmaster is based on Jazzmaster models from the 1960s. The gleaming neck finish and nickel-plated hardware make the Squire Jazzmaster a true Fender original in look, sound and feel.

The Squire Jazzmaster model features a lustrous vintage-toned neck finish, an 8-inch fretboard radius, rosewood fretboard with pearloid dot-position inlays, modern “F” logo, and matching headstock logo.

These sound pretty decent for the price. They don’t compare to Fender models, but neither does the cost. We had some problems with the bridge where the strings popped out of the grooves. However, the bridge style could easily be replaced. The vibrato arm was a nice authentic addition and doesn’t distort the mood too much.

advantages

Retro vibe guitar

Large fretboard and frets

cool sound

Disadvantages

Low quality bridge

Are wide neck guitars easier to play?

Depending on your hand size, a wide neck electric guitar may be easier to play.

Wide neck guitars are made for the player who needs a little more room to stretch their fingers comfortably.

The wide neck is more comfortable for your hands and can make guitar playing feel more natural and fluid.

Wider necks result in wider string spacing. This makes it easier to fret chord positions without your clunky fingers overlapping other strings.

The wider neck offers the player much more comfort and creates more room for the fingers to move freely.

However, players with smaller hands may find it more difficult to play with wider necks. You may not be able to finger the entire fretboard to finger chords properly.

Wider necks are easier to use if you have big fingers. It will be easier for both solos and chords.

Is an acoustic guitar good for wide hands?

Some acoustic guitars are great for wide hands. Classical guitars can be a good choice because their nylon strings are supple and easy to fret. Check out our top fingerstyle acoustic guitar roundup, which features several wide neck acoustic guitars.

If you ask is acoustic guitar better than electric guitar for wide hands? I would say it couldn’t be better anyway, it ultimately depends on the dimensions and design of each individual model. Some acoustic guitars are better than electric guitars and vice versa.

The key is finding a guitar with the right dimensions so it feels natural in your hands.

Factors to look out for when choosing the best wide neck electric guitar for fat fingers

The wider neck offers the player much more comfort and creates more room for the fingers to move freely.

There are many factors to consider when choosing a guitar, but one should be considered above all others: the width of the neck.

You must choose a guitar with the correct neck width for your hand size and playing style, as this will have a significant impact on your performance.

Most guitars have necks that aren’t wide enough for people with thick fingers or players with big fingers, which can make them difficult to play. Therefore, finding a wide-necked guitar is important so that you can play comfortably and freely without feeling constrained by your instrument.

The electric guitar is one of the most iconic instruments in the world. With a range of prices, shades and body shapes to choose from, you’ll find that there are plenty of options.

You should ask yourself these questions before you start buying a guitar.

what is your budget

What do you want to use the guitar for?

Do you want an acoustic-electric or just a standalone electric guitar?

Do you prefer an old-school Fender Stratocaster or a Gibson Les Paul?

Or maybe something more modern like an Ibanez?

How important is the sound quality (effects, amplifier) ​​to you?

saddle width and scale length

We covered nut width earlier. Scale length is another commonly quoted guitar specification that measures the length of the fretboard. Guitarists with larger hands may find it beneficial to avoid short scale guitars. A shorter scale length results in smaller, horizontally condensed frets where players with large hands may struggle to fit all of their fingers. Try using a guitar over 24 inches in scale.

The shape of the neck is also an important factor. There are many different neck profiles, from C, D to U and many more. In general, players with large hands prefer a U or D neck over a C. Although it often comes down to preference rather than science. Try different neck profiles and choose the one that feels most comfortable.

fakes

When buying a used guitar, get verified that it is an original model. Many high quality guitars are copied and forged in imitation factories.

Unfortunately eBay and thrift stores tend to let these fakes through the net. Before you buy a guitar, check for manufacturer codes and compare them on their website.

Most guitar websites have some form of verification system that allows you to check a guitar’s serial numbers to see if it’s from a real batch.

Conclusion

Overall, our favorite electric guitar for big hands was the Fender Player Stratocaster.

The Player Stratocaster is the answer to all your prayers – a guitar perfect for fat fingers!

You’ll find that this guitar sounds very versatile and has a nice width at the nut for big hands. Professionally built and of unmatched quality, this instrument will leave you completely satisfied.

It’s really easy to play even if you have fat fingers and the strings are so easy to fret. The tone is so smooth and you will be able to get fantastic sustain from it. This guitar will look great in any finish it comes in.

Stratocasters are an all-around great guitar. There are many Fender Stratocaster ranges, we chose the Player range for its affordability, quality and slightly larger size.

These have a versatile sound that works with many styles of music. The level of craftsmanship in Fender guitars is such that once you pick one up, you won’t want to put it down.

Check out this guitar today!

Sometimes acoustic guitars develop a bit of belly. Over time, string tension pulls on the bridge, angling it forward and warping the top, which in turn increases string action and causes other structural issues down the line. Here’s a particularly bad case:

To fix this we need to remove the bridge and address the tip directly. We have a sheet of cork that we cut a bridge shaped hole in, so we put that on top of the guitar to protect the top and then heat the bridge with a 75 watt lamp. This will melt the glue holding the bridge to the top, allowing us to insert knives into the glue line and lift the bridge:

With the bridge removed we can now start repairing the top.

We have a special tool for the job: the Thompson Belly Reducer – a set of five precision-machined aluminum tools: convex cauls that go onto the top and concave cauls that go into the guitar on the saddle. These are heated, placed on top and on the bridge plate and then clamped. The trick is that the heat softens the glue between the bridge plate and the ceiling, which allows the glue joint to slip while the ceiling is pressed back into shape, and as the glue cools it holds the ceiling in its correct shape. So we do it:

We heat the aluminum foils in boiling water, just hot enough to melt the glue but not so hot that they spoil the finish on the guitar top. Gloves are essential here – safety first!

MMMmmm… aluminum prints…

Once the cauls are hot enough, we quickly pull them out of the water with tongs, set them in place and clamp them. The convex and concave cauls reshape and flatten the top.

And that’s it! The heat and pressure from the cauls will do the rest – we just wait for the cauls to cool and the glue to set. Then we put the bridge back on and the ceiling is as good as new.

FRETS.COM Illustrated Glossary

It is now the industry standard

abdominal bridge

© Frank Ford, 9/6/98 Photos by FF

Around 1930, shortly after steel strings had become standard, Martin designed a new bridge to handle the high tension. The abdominal bridge is about 1-1/2 inches wide at the center, while the older rectangular “pyramid” bridges were only 2.5 cm wide. We now call this modern bridge “Belly Bridge” because of the bulging area behind the bridge pins:

Note the large area of ​​adhesive behind the bridge pins. This gives a lot of extra strength to hold the bridge in place and adds to the stability of the guitar top in general.

Not to be left out, Gibson redesigned their bridges on several models and came up with this variation:

The “Reverse Belly” bridge has the entire row of bridge pins right on the back edge, leaving almost no adhesive area where it’s needed most! So they use a couple of small screws hidden under the bead inlay points right in line with the bridge pins. Even with the bolts, these bridges aren’t nearly as strong as the Martin design.

Worrying about fat fingers while playing the guitar is a common concern. Generally, this concern manifests itself in complaints such as, “I’ve tried playing the guitar, but my fingers are just too fat to hold the strings.” Most often, these concerns come from people who’ve briefly dabbled in guitar playing, but felt they were unsuccessful. In reality, it is unlikely that large fingers could impede a person’s progress in learning to play the guitar.

Common rookie mistakes

Invariably, when students complain that fat fingers get in the way of playing guitar, their problems have exactly the same problem that all new guitarists have:

They’re not holding the guitar properly, so their hand position on the guitar’s neck causes the strings to not sound clear

They haven’t learned enough to curl their fingers so that only the fingertips make contact with the guitar string

The muscles in their grasping hand are not developed enough to effectively straighten their fingers

Although holding the guitar properly, finger position, and basic stretching exercises are covered in more detail in other lessons, let’s take a moment here to review how these apply to guitarists with particularly short fingers.

The right way to hold a guitar

Sit in a chair without armrests so that your back rests gently against the back of the chair. Hold your guitar so that the body of the instrument touches the middle of your torso and the neck is parallel to the floor. If you’re playing the guitar “right-handed,” the body of the guitar should be resting on your right leg. If you have a protruding belly that makes it difficult to hold the guitar, try angling the body of the guitar slightly so that the body of the instrument lies flat against your stomach and slightly to the right of your belly button, with the top of the headstock sticking out slightly to you.

Note: Classical guitarists use a completely different stance – the above position is used by the vast majority of guitarists playing folk, rock, blues, etc.

curl your fingers properly

Concentrate on your “fretting hand” (the hand closest to the guitar’s neck when seated in the correct position). New guitarists often try to keep their palm flat against the back of their guitar’s neck, which creates awkward angles for their fingers to grip. This inevitably leads to unintentionally muted strings. To avoid this, the thumb of your gripping hand should rest in the middle of the neck back, with the top of your palm facing the guitar’s fretboard. Your fingers should hover over the strings in a slightly curved position. It is extremely important that these fingers remain curled at the knuckles unless specifically instructed not to do so. This hand position allows your fingers to approach the strings at a much better angle, greatly reducing the chance of accidentally muting strings.

Finger stretches to improve reach

Developing dexterity in your gripping hand takes practice and patience. This is a problem that all new guitarists struggle with, not just those with fat fingers. Luckily, the internet is full of resources designed to help you solve these problems. An effective exercise is Justin Sandercoe’s finger stretching technique lesson on YouTube. Watch the video and try the technique yourself (slowly!). Be sure to maintain your hand position throughout the exercise – don’t shift your hand to accommodate the stretches, as the goal is to increase the reach of your fingers.

Choose your instrument wisely

If you’ve tried the above techniques and your fingers are still too stubby to play the guitar, you might want to consider switching to an instrument with a wider neck. Although traditionally there isn’t much of a difference in neck width between electric and acoustic guitars, which typically measure 1 11/16 inches wide at the instrument’s saddle, classical guitars have a wider neck — most commonly 2 inches — which should make fretting easier for guitarists with short fingers.

It was such a wild swing at the National Stock Exchange – triggered by a fat finger – that catapulted Chitra Ramakrishna to the top of India’s largest stock exchange in April 2013.

On October 5, 2012, the so-called “fat finger trading” triggered a massive flash crash, wiping out approximately Rs 10 trillion of investor wealth at .

CEO Ravi Narain had to pay the price and the baton passed to Ramakrishna, who was later consumed by yet another bizarre scandal.

Further, last week the derivatives segment on the National Stock Exchange experienced a freak in the weekly Nifty 50 options contract which reportedly resulted in a loss of almost Rs 200 crore for the trader.

This is not just an isolated case. There were such freak trades – caused by human error. They are called fat fingers.

On Thursday, Bloomberg Law reported that Citigroup Inc could face losses in excess of $50 million after the fat finger of a London-based employee caused a flash crash in European stocks last month. Citigroup is still in the process of calculating the exact loss.

In 2018, Deutsche Bank mistakenly transferred 28 billion euros to one of its third-party accounts, more than the bank’s market value.

In 2006, a fat mistake by a trader at Mizuho Securities in Japan led the company to erroneously short a stock, costing the company 40 billion yen to wind it down.

So what exactly is a fat finger trade?

First of all, a fat finger trade is a human error when placing an order. This may include entering an incorrect value in terms of price or quantity, or selecting the wrong execution action such as Buy or Sell.

Once the freak trade is executed, the price will reach an abnormal level for a split second and then bounce back to where it should be. For example the recent freak trade from June 2nd

The trader executed a large sell order in Nifty 14,500 call options at Rs 0.15. This contrasts with the then quoted price of over Rs 2,100 as the spot was at the 16,600 level.

Here there is a possibility that the trader has selected the wrong contract. Perhaps he or she wanted to place the sell order in either the 14,500 put or the 16,500 call instead.

The contract eventually closed at Rs 2,139 resulting in a loss of nearly Rs 200 crore based on volume traded, according to various reports.

Freak trades result in loss not only for the trader who placed the order, but also for others who may have placed a stop-loss order on their open positions, as their stop-loss orders may change due to the abnormal price movements were triggered.

But the freak trades can be avoided if caught in time.

The exchanges and brokers have constantly strived to avoid such fat finger trades by taking some preventive measures.

Exchanges and most brokerage houses have filters in place to warn traders when placing orders outside of typical market parameters. Similarly, the placement of circuit filters and a cooling off period limit price movements.

What is acoustic guitar “belly”?

“Bellying” refers to the flexing of the soundboard of an acoustic guitar. The constant tension of the strings causes the bridge to pivot forward toward the neck; resulting in top warpage (particularly behind the bridge), slight drop at the soundhole, and raised string action.

How to tell if your guitar has it?

A simple test is to take a ruler and lay it flat just behind the bridge. If the top is curved, gaps should be visible between the side of the ruler and the top of the guitar. It’s hard to tell when tummy tuck is considered severe, but a general rule would consider 2-3mm up as a curved top.

Another simple test would be to place the ruler across the top of the bridge so it’s pointing down toward the neck. When the bridge has rotated forward, the ruler will point down towards the sound hole.

What can I do to fix it?

As with most guitar problems, there are many ways to fix them. With a bulbous guitar, however, most “fixes” are temporary. A bridge or neck reset, filing the bridge saddle, etc.; They will only work for so long.

A highly recommended option is the JLD Bridge Doctor, a bridge truss system that will permanently eliminate the belly of your acoustic guitar. You can see how this works HERE

JLD Bridge Doctor

• Increases the volume

• Smoothes bulbous soundboards

A unique solution to a common bridge problem, this spruce wood device mounts under a guitar bridge. An adjustable spruce “push post” abuts the endblock and provides leverage to flatten the soundboard. The spruce log is 3/4″ x 1-5/8″ x 3-3/8″. The 1/4″ diameter tie rod is 9″ long. The mounting post has three different positions to accommodate a variety of bridge styles. This spruce wood device attaches under the bridge with an inlaid screw (a white mother-of-pearl dot is included to hide the bridge screw). The spruce pressure post abuts the endblock and provides leverage to flatten the soundboard. Better bridge contact and alignment can also improve sound projection. The pin-mounted version of the JLD Bridge Doctor attaches under the bridge with a threaded brass bridge pin. Mount the strings horizontally through the tips of the matching brass bridge pins (included). We recommend the brass pin mount version for 12 string guitars.