Nasdaq says early leak of Twitter earnings was a mistake
Nasdaq Stock Market said Wednesday that its Shareholder.com investor relations service prematurely posted Twitter’s earnings by accident.
Twitter’s stock was briefly halted Tuesday afternoon after data research firm Selerity tweeted its earnings results, which were due to be released following the stock market close.
Selerity said it didn’t leak or hack the information, which came from Twitter’s website.
Selerity’s computers found the earnings report in the 45 seconds it was up on Twitter’s site at 3:07 p.m. on Tuesday. A person with a Web browser could, in theory, have found the information if they had been looking at the right place at the right time. To find the earnings report, a person would have had to click on several links and then download the earnings press release, according to Selerity.
Selerity then tweeted the results and sent them to its clients.
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For the Record
An earlier version of this story reported erroneously that the research firm Selerity uses computers to search websites for information that humans wouldn’t be able to find. Selerity’s computers find information online the instant it is made public.
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In a statement, Nasdaq said it regrets what happened.
Twitter Inc. had no further comment on Wednesday. On Tuesday, the San Francisco company said it was investigating the source of the leak.
The San Francisco company’s shares plunged 18 percent after the earnings report came out and showed revenue and a forecast below Wall Street’s expectations. On Wednesday, the stock lost another 8.9 percent to close at $38.49.
