Did a fake Bloomberg report cause Twitter stock to spike?

A fake article published on a spoof Bloomberg website claiming that Twitter have been offered a buy-out sum amounting to $31 billion is likely to have caused an 8.5% rise in Twitter stock, according to the real Bloomberg Business.

Published on Bloomberg.market – .market being a new top level domain – the still-present article claims that Twitter have been “attracting suitors” and are “working closely with bankers” after receiving a $31 billion buy-out offer.

Despite the Bloomberg.market website only being registered since July 10th 2015 and misspelling ex-Twitter CEO Richard “Dick” Costolo’s name (no, it’s not Costello) many still fell for the fake report including certain mainstream media outlets, and Bloomberg Business have reported that Twitters stock price spiked only moments after the spoof article managed to go viral, rising by as much as 8.5%.

Twitter stock spike – source Bloomberg

Upon a cursory glance, the fake Bloomberg website appears to resemble the real Bloomberg website (located at www.Bloomberg.com) even using their logo and colour scheme. However none of the site is affiliated with the real Bloomberg corporation.

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The incident occurs only weeks after we reported on a surge of fake news websites using the .co extension (the top level domain extension for Colombia) that masqueraded as popular brands including NBC, USAToday and the NYTimes.

Incidents that affect the stock market in such a way may be subject to an SEC investigation to explore potential stock market fraud, but the SEC was not available to comment at this time, Bloomberg reports.

UPDATE: The SEC have told Bloomberg that they are looking into the matter.