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False Tweet Causes Stock Market to Plunge

April 23, 2013

By Gilbert Falso :: 1:58 PM

Markets plungh after AP Tweet.The false Tweet sent out by the hacked Associated Press (AP) Twitter account caused a shockwave in U.S. financial markets earlier this afternoon.

At 1:07 PM, the official Twitter account of the AP posted a message that claimed President Obama was injured in a pair of explosions at the White House. The news was, of course, erroneous, but the markets didn’t realize it at the time.

Immediately following the hacked Tweet, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dropped over 100 points, but rebounded just as quickly as many news organizations quickly pointed out that the AP Tweet was a hoax.

The chart below, from Google Finance, shows the drop and rebound across the three major markets, the DJIA, the S&P 500, and the NASDAQ Composite.

Major U.S. markets drop and rebound after errant AP Tweet.

 

 

Filed under → Cybercrime, Hacking, Investment and Funding, Journalism, Legal, Social Media, Twitter