How ‘Fake News’ Added – And Then Wiped – $4 Trillion from the Stock Market in Minutes

Wall Street was braced for chaos when the US markets opened for trading on Monday, but no one could have anticipated the $4 trillion meltdown that ensued.

An unsourced claim that Donald Trump was mulling a 90-day pause on the sweeping tariffs he imposed on virtually all of America’s trading partners sent stocks flying upwards before plummeting back down at breakneck speed.

In the space of minutes, trillions had been added to and wiped off some of the most sophisticated financial markets in the world.

Below, we take a closer look at how the events unfolded.

The interview: 8.24am

The turmoil began when Kevin Hassett, the perennially-cheerful director of the US’ national economic council, was asked on Fox News on Monday morning whether Mr Trump would bend to calls for a 90-day pause before unleashing a global trade war on April 9.

“I think the president is going to decide what the president is going to decide,” Mr Hassett said.

His remarks, at 8.24am, were a non-answer and the Dow Futures tracker on the Fox News screen continued its steady fall.

But later that morning CNBC appeared to misinterpret the Fox interview on live TV.

“I think we can go with this headline,” a host said, glancing at a sheet of paper. “Apparently Hassett’s been saying that Trump will consider a 90-day pause”.

Where that assertion had come from is unclear: CNBC did not seem to know itself.

“We’ll try and source that exactly in terms of where it’s coming from,” another host added.

But that was enough to prompt Reuters, an eminent news wire, to send out an alert quoting Mr Hassett as saying Trump was considering a 90-day pause.

The White House previously said that around 50 countries had made overtures to the US president in an attempt to avert the tariffs.

An unsourced claim: 9.13am

Roughly an hour after Mr Hassett’s original interview, at 9.13am, an X account by the name of Walter Bloomberg, which has more than 800,000 followers and regularly releases updates on financial news, repeated the 90-day claim.

“Hassett: Trump is considering a 90-day pause in tariffs for all countries except China,” the account wrote in block capitals, accompanying it with a klaxon emoji.

Maybe it was the blue tick status of the account, its name – Bloomberg, as in the financial data company – or the fact the claim was quickly swept up in social media misinformation, but markets were sent rocketing upwards.

Mr Bloomberg then proceeded to post updates about a market recovery that the post was at least partially responsible for.

“S&P 500 rises 2.1 per cent, erasing decline of as much as 4.7 per cent,” the account posted at 10.14am.

Four minutes later, this was followed by: “S&P 500 rises 3.4 per cent to session high; Nasdaq 100 climbs 4.5 per cent.”

White House steps in: 10.25am

However, the climbing valuations fell back off a cliff at 10.25am, when the White House declared reports of a 90-day reprieve “fake news”.

Mr Trump has been known to use the term liberally – but in this case, the White House was right.

The 90-day headlines appear to have prompted a scramble inside the West Wing as aides tried to work out exactly how communications had gone so wrong.

“Officials in the West Wing are checking to find out if this is an accurate report, but no information and no confirmation,” Eamon Javers, CNBC’s White House correspondent, said on Monday morning.

Mea culpa: After 10.25am

After the White House clarification, CNBC was forced to dismiss the original report.

Reuters issued its own mea culpa, saying it had “withdrawn the incorrect report and regrets its error”, while noting that it was “drawing a headline from CNBC”.

Mr Bloomberg, who came in for heavy social media flack after the gaffe, said the news had been sourced from Reuters.

In a subsequent post responding to the White House denial, the account simply posted: “wtf.”

The identity of Mr Bloomberg is unclear. The X profile states that the user is based in Geneva.

Four years ago, a Reddit user submitted a complaint to the US Securities and Exchange Commission about Mr Bloomberg, complaining that the account had sought to manipulate stock prices by spreading “fake news” about companies.

The chaotic scenes ended up moving $4 trillion on the financial markets in a matter of minutes.

In the end, it proved to be a bad misunderstanding for the markets, and an embarrassing one for the media.