What happens next Where's my refund? Best CD rates this month Shop and save 🤑
MONEY
Securities and Exchange Commission

Report: SEC investigating fake story about Twitter

Roger Yu
USA TODAY
A fake Bloomberg story about a Twitter takeover offer caused Twitter shares to rise Tuesday.

A fake news story that caused Twitter shares to spike Tuesday is now getting regulators' attention.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission "is looking into" the story's origin and whether the writers who produced it sought to gain financially by stoking the social media company's shares, according to Bloomberg News.

Florence Harmon, an SEC spokeswoman, declined to comment.

Shares of Twitter started to climb around 11:30 AM Tuesday after the fake story -- designed to look like a story published by Bloomberg -- appeared online, purporting to report that Twitter was fielding a buyout offer. The article appeared on a site called bloomberg.market, but the site was was no longer working by Tuesday afternoon. After rising about 8%, Twitter shares came back down about 20 minutes later.

Twitter ended the day 2.6% higher at $36.72.

"The story was fake and appeared on a bogus website that was not affiliated with Bloomberg," company spokesman Ty Trippet said in a statement.

Twitter declined to comment.

Bloomberg reports that the website in question was registered earlier this month to a post office box in Panama belonging to WhoisGuard, which says it provides online privacy protection services.

WhoisGuard, which lists a post-office box in Panama as its contact address, couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Follow Roger Yu on Twitter: @RogerYu_.

Featured Weekly Ad