‘White House Attacked, Obama Injured’ AP Tweet Hoax Crashes US Stock Market

Tuesday tweet allegedly from the Associated Press went global claiming two explosions in the White House and that President Barack Obama had been injured – causing the US stock market to crash in minutes


21st Century Wire says…
As supposed hoaxes go, this one was huge, in more ways than one.

The scene was set. America, a country on edge following the attacks at the Boston Marathon last week. An alleged AP ‘hoax tweet’ hits the Twitter wire with talk  of an attack on the White House – all said to be done via hackers accessing the AP social media account, causing US markets to plummet and the CBOE Volatility Index – aka ‘the fear index’, to surge… all in a matter of minutes. As a sweetener, the Tweet also claimed Obama was injured in the attacks. Just like an episode of 24...

Although authorities claim that this tweet is a hack which originated from the “Syrian Electronic Army”, one can’t help but speculate whether or not there is more here than meets the eye to this event which manged to wipe $200 billion worth of market value off of the stock market in a flash.

Looking back at some famous media ‘false-flag false starts’ in history, the most famous being when the BBC announced that WTC building 7 had collapsed 20 minutes ahead of the actual event – from which we wonder whether it’s possible that a real false flag event could be released via the newswires only to be canceled or pulled back instead.

No real bombs went off but ‘someone made a bomb’ on Tues

More likely, one should look at the insider trading implications – as there were  potential billions on the table for anyone savvy enough to short the market in advance of this alleged Twitter hoax. We know that all the conditions were set for an optimal opportunity to do just this in advance of Tuesday.

According to the report below from RT, it was made possible by a perfect storm – new technology that can ‘read’ social media messages and place bets accordingly, and the recent Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) move that gave companies permission to release vital information through social media such as Twitter and Facebook.

And then this tweet appears, and they’re blaming it on the Syrians..? Just a coincidence? 

Hardly.
…

The Tweet that rocked Wall Street: $200 billion lost on fake message

A single hoax message sent via Twitter, the social media platform, erased billions of value from US stock markets on Tuesday, drawing attention to an electronic Trojan horse that hackers may manipulate with apparent ease.
A picture may contain a thousand words, but a single fake tweet can blow a hole in financial markets in seconds.
That was the costly lesson learned on Tuesday as a tweet allegedly from the Associated Press went the global rounds just before 1:08 p.m., reporting two explosions in the White House and that President Barack Obama had been injured.
Within minutes AP personnel swung into damage control, attempted to reassure the tweet was a hoax. But the damage was already done: The bogus message sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average into a tailspin, shaving 150 points, or about 1 percent, in the blink of an eye.
The fake Tweet dealt a hammer blow to other markets as well: The S&P 500, the NASDAQ and crude oil all dropped 1 percent. The S&P 500′s losses alone wiped out about $136.5 billion, according to Reuters; the broader market lost nearly $200 billion in value, USA Today reported. At the same time, the yield on the 10-year US Treasury note fell 4 basis points, and the CBOE Volatility Index – the so-called ‘fear index’ – surged 10 percent.
The fallout from the fake tweet, which came as the nation remains on edge following the attacks at the Boston Marathon, was compounded by new technology that can ‘read’ social media messages and place bets accordingly, experts say.
The two-minute period of panic selling forced the Dow down from around 14700 to 14554. By 1:13 p.m., a mere 5 minutes after the message was picked up by traders, the market had recovered most of the ground that had been lost.
Despite the brief pandemonium, the Dow at the closing bell was up 152.29 points, or 1.05%, at 14719.46.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), said it is investigating trade activity that occurred at the time of the tweet, recently gave companies permission to release vital information through social media such as Twitter and Facebook.
The computer programs that are able to decipher the messages “are incredibly sophisticated,” Eric Pritchett, chief executive at Potamus Trading, a brokerage firm that specializes in electronic trading, told the Wall Street Journal. A program “reading the feed and seeing ‘blowing up’ can also read the one saying the account was ‘hacked,’” Pritchett said.
SEC officials said it was too early to determine if the hoax was an effort on the part of some individuals to profit from the confusion, but some are pointing to such a possibility.
“Imagine a situation where knowing a tweet of this kind can cause a market to go down,” Giovanni Vigna, co-founder and chief technology officer of the security firm Lastline, told WSJ. “You buy at a low price, and when the market rebounds, you make a profit.”
Meanwhile, the seven minutes that elapsed before the market understood it was the victim of a hoax would have given any perpetrators plenty of time to pocket a huge profit…