24 Apr 2013

Markets hit by fake tweet

8:35 am on 24 April 2013

Stock markets in New York crashed on Tuesday, but quickly recovered after a fake tweet from the Associated Press feed said President Barack Obama had been injured in an explosion at the White House.

The AP news agency said its Twitter account was hacked.

The SP 500 dropped 14 points to as low as 1,563.03 before recovering, all in about five seconds.

The Dow Jones Index closed up 152 points, or 1%, at 14,719

The Nasdaq Composite closed up 36 points, or 1.1%, at 3,269.

Earlier, the FTSE index in London was up 2%, the DAX in Frankfurt was up 2.41% and the CAC-40in Paris was up 3.58%.

The Australian 200 Index closed on Tuesday up 50 points, or 1%, at 5,016. The NZX 50 closed up 33 points, or 0.7%, at 4,517.

At 8.30am on Wednesday, the New Zealand dollar was trading at 84.01 US cents, 81.81 Australian cents, 55.10 pence, 83.43 yen and 0.6460 euro. The Trade Weighted Index was at 77.81.

Brent crude oil was trading at $US100.39 per barrel and gold was trading at $US1412.97 per ounce.