Matti Robinson
11 Oct 2017 13:24
Fake news is clearly the meme of the year, and while it might be often thought to infect mostly politics a new case has made stock markets react. Dow Jones Newswire, the news service designed for investors, reported a what would be the acquisition of the century.
According to CNBC Dow Jones reported yesterday that Google was going to buy Apple. The fact of course is that no such thing is going to happen, and no investor would believe such an extraordinary thing without checking another source first.
Obviously, when true, news like these have a huge effect on investors and stock markets, and even though some bots sold and bought stocks because of the news, fortunately this didn't end in a catastrophe.
Perhaps the news was too easily dismissible because the story said Google would pay $9 billion for Apple. Even though it's a large amount of money you'd have to pay probably at least 100 times more for Apple. Apple's market cap is closing on a trillion dollars.
In addition to that there were several other errors that might have hinted at fake news. For one Google would not acquire the likes of Apple but it would instead be the parent company Alphabet.
Dow Jones has said that it was not a target of hacking but instead it was a technical fault that made these news to live. Perhaps it was some test news that were mistakenly posted live.