In 1995, Chinese New Year commenced on 31 January. About two weeks before the New Year, on 16 January 1995, a British futures trader named Nick Leeson bet in the Singapore International Monetary Exchange (SIMEX) that the Nikkei 225 Index would not fall below 19,000 points overnight. It was a fairly safe bet as the Nikkei had been fairly stable recently. But on 5.46 am on 17January 1995, his bet fell apart when there was an earthquake at Kobe killing about 6,000 persons. In a matter of seconds, he had lost a huge amount of money for his employer, Barings Bank. In desperation, he purchased another 20,000 futures contracts betting that the Nikkei would make a swift recovery. But the Nikkei did not recover so soon. His accumulated losses amounted to about 827 million pounds (US$1.4 billion) or about twice the trading capital of the bank.