Inaccurate Financial Times European Central Bank tweet causes market stir
The Financial Times has inadvertently influenced stock markets to the tune of millions of dollars after accidentally publishing an inaccurate article minutes before the European Central Bank’s (ECB) deposit rate announcement.
An editorial error published an incorrect forecast – pre-empting the ECB’s official statement with one of two pre-written articles.
Even worse, the publisher’s automated social media arrangement saw the story tweeted to savvy investors who reacted immediately as documented by the following tweet.
Whoopsy. FT Markets tweet caused a bit of a stir... pic.twitter.com/2wwzgzJNjb
— Harry Mills (@HLMills88) December 3, 2015
The publication issued an apology for the incident: “The story was wrong and should not have been published.
“The FT deeply regrets this serious mistake and will immediately be reviewing its publication and workflow processes to ensure such an error cannot happen again. We apologise to all our readers.”
There could be a backlash against the Nikkei-owned publication as investors could hold its misinformation liable for their losses.