Stocks Plunge Briefly After Hacked AP Twitter Reports White House Explosion

Stocks plunged for a few minutes Tuesday after the Associated Press sent out a tweet claiming there was an explosion at the White House. The tweet was fake and the result of a hack.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 index both took sharp dives after the AP tweet, which said “Breaking: Two explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured.” Check out a graph illustrating the dramatic drop below:

Stocks returned to their previous levels shortly after AP revealed that their account had been hacked, according to CNBC.

The Associated Press reports:

NEW YORK — The stock market briefly dropped, then recovered, after the Associated Press' Twitter account was hacked and a fake tweet about an attack on the White House was posted.

The AP released the following statement at 1:12 p.m.: "The (at)AP twitter account has been hacked. The tweet about an attack at the White House is false. We will advise more as soon as possible."

The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 150 points after the fake Twitter posting, then quickly recovered.