Twitter jitters

It took less than 140 typed characters to wipe US$140 billion off the value of US stocks last Tuesday. After hackers broke into Associated Press' Twitter account and tweeted that there had been two explosions at the White House, injuring President Barack Obama, the markets went into a tailspin.

Within minutes of the false tweet, Twitter suspended the account and both AP and the White House confirmed that it was a hoax. But the message had already been retweeted more than 3,000 times, sending the benchmark S&P 500 index down almost 1 per cent.

via Business feed http://www.scmp.com/business/money/markets-investing/article/1225507/twitter-jitters