On Friday, one news anchor's slip-up lead to some hasty buying and selling in the market. CNBC's Jim Goldman reported at around 10:50 a.m. that Microsoft was cutting its revenue by $200K, misinterpreting a statement by the company that told of a plan to reduce
expenses by that same amount. CNBC effectively turned good news into bad news, that latter of which sent many a shareholder into a frenzy, and—as
summarized by The Business Insider—"temporarily whacked the whole NASDAQ."
At the height of the panic, the amount of company stock being traded jumped to 6.9 million shares from 1.3 million, while the price per share fell by about 1 percent, according to
Gawker. The network eventually corrected its mistake, albeit subtly, as Goldman offered a "clarification" on his previous reporting, beginning with the admittedly sleazy intro, "Just so we all understand..." Microsoft more than bounced back, however, and ended the day with a 5.28 percent increase in value, as
reported in the Wall Street Pit.
Now, CNBC obviously made an error, but there's some debate over who is most at fault: the network or the shareholders. The Business Insider actually
asked CNBC if it was going to formally apologize (or better acknowledge its error), to which the network responded, uh, no. But Gawker says
the finicky shareholders are the real jerks, for selling stock based on a single report.
Would you sell your company stock if you saw one unfavorable news report? Should CNBC apologize for its error?
Comments (1)
CNBC should better acknowledge their error and apologize for it. That's what the news, especially this part of the news, is for. True, they could have checked other sources before they decided to do anything, but the news networks need to own up to it when they make such a mistake. If they didn't know that a lot of people depend on that news report to know what is going on, they would not be making such news reports.
Covering their asses is understandable, but their actions have consequences and they'd be a lot less if people would just own up to the things they do wrong and apologize. It just makes you look like a slimy network or show if you don't.