The Dow Jones newswire reported some news this morning: Google (NASDAQ:$GOOGL) is acquiring Apple (NASDAQ:$AAPL) for $9 billion, thanks to an agreement in Steve Jobs’ will. Don’t get too excited, however. The news – and the multiple alerts the newswire sent out – were fake.
“In a surprise move to anyone who is alive, Google said it’s going to buy Apple for $9 billion,” a report by Josee Rose read. “Google Chief Executive Larry Page had secret talks with the now-deceased Steve Jobs in 2010 to firm up the deal… Obviously, Google will move into Apple’s fancy headquarters. Google employees said, ‘Yay’”
The story was first reported by 9to5Mac after traders started sharing the news alerts on Twitter. According to 9to5Mac, the incident has not had much of an impact on the stock market, other than Apple’s stock briefly going up to $158.
What caused the blip? An official reason has not been disclosed but it is likely due to automatic trading algorithms.
A Dow Jones spokesperson said the following in a statement: “Please disregard the headlines that ran on Dow Jones Newswires between 9:34 a.m. ET and 9:36 a.m. ET. Due to a technical error, a stream of test data was inadvertently published. All of those headlines are being removed from the wires. We apologize for the error.”
Many speculate the Dow Jones had been hacked, but Steve Severinghauss, Dow Jones director of communications, told Gizmodo, “We absolutely were not hacked.”
Featured Image: depositphotos/wolterke
