Tricking Wall Street

For John, BLUF:  When news moves at the speed of light, trading systems need good filters and fuze plugs.

Comments from a newspaper reporter (Deep Background):

Fake tweets posted about explosions at White House, prompting this official tweet:

The official @AP account has been hacked!  No explosions at the White House, Barack Obama not injured.

It should be noted that the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 150 points based on that fake tweet.

So investors and traders don't have time to analyze news, they just react to stimuli.  If terrorists really wanted to wreck the US economy, all they need to do is post fake news.

1)  Thank God the President is safe and the White House is undamaged.

2)  With computer based trading on a hair trigger, this has potential to be a problem.

Regards  —  Cliff