Stocks, bonds and crude oil prices all fell but recovered after a fake posting about an attack at the White House.
View full sizeStocks fell but recovered today after a tweet from a hacked Associated Press account claimed the White House had been attacked. The stock market briefly dropped, then recovered, after the Associated Press’ Twitter account was hacked and a fake tweet about an attack on the White House was posted.
The AP released the following statement at 1:12 p.m.: “The (at)AP twitter account has been hacked. The tweet about an attack at the White House is false. We will advise more as soon as possible.”
The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 150 points after the fake Twitter posting, then quickly recovered.
Other markets also reacted to the fake posting.
The price of crude oil fell, then rose back. The yield on the benchmark U.S. government bond, the 10-year Treasury note, briefly dropped as traders shifted money into low-risk investments.
The turmoil lasted for about five minutes. By about 1:13 p.m., stocks, bonds and crude oil were all trading about where they were before the fake tweet was posted.
The false tweet said there had been two explosions at the White House and that President Barack Obama was injured. The attack on AP’s Twitter account and the AP Mobile Twitter account was preceded by phishing attempts on AP’s corporate network.
The AP confirmed that its Twitter account had been suspended following a hack.
AP spokesman Paul Colford said the news cooperative is working with Twitter to investigate the issue. The AP has disabled its other Twitter accounts following the attack, Colford added. At no time was the AP news wire compromised.
Asked about the incident at a press briefing, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the President is fine.
“I was just with him,” Carney said.