At 10 am, screaming broke out on the Siebert -Handelsvloer in the center of Manhattan. Mark Malek, the Chief Investment Officer of the company, rushed out his office to hear his head dealer shouting that President Donald Trump has been sinking the roll -out of the rate that had fucked for days, stock markets.
Malek didn’t believe it. “I call BS,” he flipped out. But seconds later he watched surprised while the shares rose wildly, all that early morning loss in the S&P 500 knew and climbing no less than 3.4%. “The market is very sensitive,” said Malek. “Tenterhooks is an understatement.”
The head that seemed to activate it all seemed credible enough for traders who were desperately looking for good news -even if it came from an obscure social -media account. “Hassett: Trump is considering a 90-day break in rates for all countries except China,” read the post on X.
As the shares started to rise, the reposts accumulated, followed by almost identical heads of large news broadcasts, including CNBC and Reuters. Within seven minutes, the S&P had added more than $ 2.5 trillion to value.
And then, just as fast, it evaporated. The White House said that the comments attributed to Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council, were “fake news” and again plummeted shares. CNBC and Reuters recognized the error in statements and corrections issued. (Bloomberg News did not publish the head. Bloomberg has noticed listeners of his Squawk shares who had pushed the market higher on a possible tariff delay higher.)
When traders “realized that this head was wrong, everything was sold again. Now everyone gets their butts,” said Peter Tuchman, senior floor trader at Trademas at the New York Stock Exchange. “This is madness.”
All in all, the return lasted only 15 minutes.
“The speed of the movements was just stunning,” says Justin Wiggs, a director of Equity Trading at Stifel Nicolaus. “It felt Swifter than everything I have ever experienced during Covid and the financial crisis at a trade agency.”
Still, even after shares have returned their profit, the sales fever that flowed through the market took shares that fluctuated between profit and losses in the afternoon. The episode served as a reminder to some investors that it is not necessary to generate a sudden rally at these moments, which forced them to reconsider how much they had taken out their share positions.
“The upward risk is just as scary when the markets rip 8% on a truth of social post or false head,” said Chris Murphy, co-head of the derivative strategy at Susquehanna.
(This story was not edited by NDTV staff and is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
