On Monday, shares of UAL Corp. NASDAQ: UAUA) tanked following a story on the South Florida Sun-Sentinel website stating that the company had filed for bankruptcy. It turned out that the story was a rerun of a 2002 piece, apparently posted on the website by mistake.The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) that the Securities & Exchange Commission has launched an informal probe into the circumstances surrounding the dissemination of the story and subsequent price drop, in an attempt to determine whether it may have been a case of deliberate manipulation and foul play.
Tribune, the parent company of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, has explained that the whole mess began when a single visit to the archived story early Sunday morning pushed the story onto its top business news page, where it was then picked up by Google News and Bloomberg.
That certainly doesn't sound nefarious, if it's the complete story, but it is a little scary: one night owl Googling old news stories can start a domino effect leading to national media outlets reporting the bankruptcy of a billion dollar company?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-12-2008 @ 8:16AM
Sugiarto Setiabudi said...
Standard IT compliance in question among the other thing such as ill motive in short trading.
Current trend in shopping IT compliance certificate rather than proper implementation of SOP in IT infrastructure.