Hack attacks continue with the DJIA and S&P 500 Index suddenly losing all of their gains on the day only to briefly recover. The result came from a hack of the AP Twitter feed, and the end game is that someone will go to jail for this if they are ever caught. The Flash Crash changed the markets in 2009 and may have been yet one final straw that spooked many investors out of stocks for quite some time. Despite the exchanges taking measures to create individual issue circuit breakers to prevent this from happening, so-called “mini flash crashes” occur routinely and often without rhyme or reason. We do not have all of the details as of yet, but there was a fake tweet from the AP Twitter feed.

There was apparently a hack in the Twitter feed signaling that an explosion had taken place at the White House and that President Obama had been injured. This was quickly shut down and the AP feeds on Twitter are all denying this. Even the White House has confirmed that this was a bogus event.

Stocks were up big, and suddenly went way down into the red based upon the fake tweet. This is the problem with too many people trusting social media and trusting online sources. The other side of the argument is that the social media space may likely be responsible for breaking or confirming news in the future over the traditional media networks.

By the way, what happened today is not covered as a protection under freedom of speech. This is worse than yelling “Fire!” in a crowded movie theater. If the person that did this is caught, they will be going to jail. Here is what happened in the market based on this crime as you can see by a Bloomberg daily DJIA chart:

An image of the fake Tweet is blow:

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