The Financial Times and then other media including Reuters earlier in the day reported the fund had made a 672 million pound ($835.43 million) bet against HSBC shares, citing publicly available daily data from the Financial Conduct Authority.

The data seen by Reuters on Friday showed Qube had on Tuesday taken a short position worth 0.57% of HSBC's outstanding shares. An updated version of the data reviewed by Reuters at 1800 GMT showed no mention of the position.

"The FCA filing was made erroneously due to a technical issue and is currently being corrected with the FCA. Please note that QRT do not have a net short position in HSBC," QRT Chief Operating Officer Stuart Brown told Reuters.

Brown did not explain how the technical error occurred, but said Qube was investigating.

A spokesperson for HSBC declined to comment. The FCA did not respond immediately to a request for comment on whether it would take any action.

A short position is a bet that a company's stock price will decline.

FCA rules require investors to disclose to it short positions in stocks when they reach 0.2% of a company's outstanding stock, albeit the watchdog earlier this year relaxed a requirement for short sellers to announce such positions publicly.

($1 = 0.8044 pounds)

(Reporting by Lawrence White; Editing by Louise Heavens and Paul Simao)

By Lawrence White