United Airlines Briefly Lost 75% of its Value Because of Story from 2002

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/business/09air.html

by ojbyrne • 18 years ago

16 13 18 years ago

I guess that is the control group for the Emulex Hoax: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulex_hoax

mattmaroon2• 18 years ago

Bloomberg is sounding a lot like Wikipedia lately, except that when someone edits the 3 Doors Down Wikipedia entry to say that Avril Lavigne is their lead singer, nobody loses a billion.

ivank• 18 years ago

I sold my friend a barrel of oil for $1 yesterday, briefly wiping out the world economy.

Protophore• 18 years ago

It will be interesting to see if anyone made money off of the false information and goes to jail because of it.

dcurtis• 18 years ago

It will also be interesting to see if anyone made money off of it legally and doesn't go to jail. Probably a lot of lucky day traders.

mattmaroon2• 18 years ago

For someone to sell the shares at $3 someone else had to buy them at that price.

ars• 18 years ago

It's not illegal to make money on the false info, but it is to post the false info in the first place. Was it accidental or deliberate? I guess we shall find out.

Although, at least the NASDAQ has a mechanism for canceling sales (for example if someone typo's on entering a price). Will they use that?

jrockway• 18 years ago

“This was a very serious event that impacted our stock, and caused trading to be halted,” she said. “This is what happens when people are irresponsible and don’t check facts.”

If I ever have a few billion dollars lying around, I think I'm going to slowly buy United stock and then randomly dump it all one day... just to annoy her. I can see the quote:

“This was a very serious event that impacted our stock, and caused trading to be halted,” she said. “This is what happens when jrockway has too much money on his hands.”

ovi256• 18 years ago

> If I ever have a few billion dollars lying around, I think I'm going to give it to jrockway ... just to annoy her.

ca98am79• 18 years ago

I wouldn't be surprised if the trading bots did it - they are getting very smart

fauigerzigerk• 18 years ago

I agree. And those other "bots" who read the story in the first place and started selling are getting dumber it seems :-)

daniel-cussen• 18 years ago

Looks like what they need's a bot that can act as a bullshit detector.

United Airlines Briefly Lost 75% of its Value Because of Story from 2002

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