Today's question is courtesy Rajeev. What caused the anomalous downward spike?
Answer: The visual shows the stock of United airlines plummeting on Sept 8th, 2008 within just a few minutes. The reason was that Google news picked up an old news from 2002 about the airline (a bankruptcy article the airline had filed) and ran it as though the news were current. A Bloomburg analyst saw this and ran it as headline news without checking it out causing massive selling of UA stocks. Trade was briefly halted to restore order and UA lost about $300 million dollars in market value. Adi and Raghu got it. Well done.
I simply have to mention Iam's excellent guess. His answer (which he told me in person) was that the stock markets halted when they turned on the LHC to see if it created any black holes which might make trading a moot point. It doesn't explain the spike but still...
I simply have to mention Iam's excellent guess. His answer (which he told me in person) was that the stock markets halted when they turned on the LHC to see if it created any black holes which might make trading a moot point. It doesn't explain the spike but still...
4 comments:
September 11,2001?
Someone searching google, getting an old news, and causing panic in UAL stock....hmm...if you have a blog with a following this is a good way to blackmail companies
An old news item about United Airways bankruptcy was re-picked up by Google News and caused a sharp drop in UA's stock.
@ Dinky :
Actually, it does explain the spike. Right after people realized that the LHC did not destroy the world, they became jubilant, which led to more irrational trading and the global financial collapse. Iam has cracked the puzzle that has flummoxed the best economists !!
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