Fake Tweet Erases $136B in Stock Market(businessweek.com)
businessweek.com
Fake Tweet Erases $136B in Stock Market
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-04-23/fake-report-erasing-136-billion-shows-market-s-fragility
3 comments
> The interesting question is whether the people panic selling were skittish human traders or twitter-based algorithms trying to get a jump on the headline.
It's sometimes neither of those. A lot of stop-loss orders will have been triggered.
It's sometimes neither of those. A lot of stop-loss orders will have been triggered.
I doubt that is true. The overall market moved less than 1% and I don't think individual names moved much more than their normal daily trading ranges.
Another linked article today indicates it was algorithmic trades, not human ones, and that the algorithms, which track tweets and social media, read it wrong -- they should have been buying, not selling.
And in fact, at market close, the three major indexes were all up over a percent. Nothing got "erased" today.
Reality: fake tweet causes scoreboard to indicate inaccurate value for several minutes. Nothing has been erased.
The interesting question is whether the people panic selling were skittish human traders or twitter-based algorithms trying to get a jump on the headline.