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Photo by Anne Nygård / Unsplash
The U.S. stock market reacted sharply to a piece of fake news about the possible cancellation of import duties — first with a spike, and then with an equally abrupt but even deeper plunge. The upheaval lasted for just under half an hour before markets returned to something approximating the status quo ante. It all started with billionaire Bill Ackman's inaccurately quoted words regarding Trump's trade tariffs, which had previously caused global markets to plummet. Ackman mentioned a proposal to declare a moratorium on the tariffs, and a Fox News reporter relayed his words to White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett. Hassett's vague response was quoted — and tweaked — by an influencer with nearly a million social media followers. This was enough to send indexes surging within five minutes, temporarily boosting market capitalization by around two trillion dollars. After the White House rebuttal, it took just under 20 minutes for capitalization to collapse by three trillion.
Trump later issued an official statement on Truth Social, saying that the U.S., contrary to the “good” news that sent the markets soaring, is ready to increase duties on Chinese goods by another 50% if Beijing does not lift retaliatory tariffs imposed on Apr. 4.
The Insider reconstructed the course of events that led to the stock market turmoil, the aftermath of which has yet to be dealt with. It is still unclear whether what happened was an elaborate scheme organized to save some of the players from losses, or a fatal accident demonstrating investors' desperation to hear pleasant-but-inaccurate news portending the end of the “trade war” unleashed by the Trump administration.
April 6/7, 5:15 p.m. Washington, 11:13 p.m. Berlin, 00:15 a.m. Moscow
Bill Ackman, founder of the Pershing Square Capital Management hedge fund and a former Trump supporter, calls the president’s tariff policy a “mistake.” As Ackman writes on his X (formerly Twitter) account, “by placing massive and disproportionate tariffs on our friends and our enemies alike and thereby launching a global economic war against the whole world at once, we are in the process of destroying confidence in our country as a trading partner.” Ackman continues: “The president has an opportunity to call a 90-day time out, negotiate and resolve unfair asymmetric tariff deals, and induce trillions of dollars of new investment in our country.”
April 6/7, 9:20 p.m. Washington, 03:20 a.m. Berlin, 04:20 a.m. Moscow
Ackman’s words draw the attention of Reuters journalists. In its summary of the investor’s missive, the news outlet emphasizes Ackman’s statement about the 90-day pause.
April 7, 8:24 a.m. Washington, 2:24 p.m. Berlin, 3:24 p.m. Moscow
Kevin Hassett, head of the National Economic Council at the White House, appears on Fox News. The anchor asks him if there will be a 90-day pause before the tariffs come into force. Hassett responds that “the president is going to decide what the president is going to decide.” He continues: “There are more than 50 countries in negotiation with the president. We've got the prime minister of Israel coming today; we had a reach-out overnight from Taiwan.” Meanwhile, a portrait of Bill Ackman is shown on the screen with a ticker claiming that Hassett is commenting on the entrepreneur's warnings.
April 7, 8:33 a.m. Washington, 2:33 p.m. Berlin, 3:33 p.m. Moscow
Journalist Aaron Rupar (over 950,000 followers), known for posting excerpts from American TV broadcasts, publishes a fragment of the Fox News broadcast on X.
April 7, 9:30 a.m. Washington, 3:30 p.m. Berlin, 4:30 p.m. Moscow
Markets in the U.S. open down but after a few minutes begin to slowly rise.
April 7, 10:01 a.m. Washington, 4:01 p.m. Berlin, 5:01 p.m. Moscow
The European Commission releases a statement from Ursula von der Leyen about the body's proposal to abolish duties on U.S. industrial goods.
April 7, 10:11 a.m. Washington, 4:11 p.m. Berlin, 5:11 p.m. Moscow
Hammer Capital, an X account with some 600 followers, posts: “Hassett: Trump is considering a 90-day pause in tariffs for all countries except China. Mother of all squeezes incoming.”
An anonymous X account titled Hammer Capital was the first to publish the fake “headline” about the pause
In sync with the Hammer Capital post, major U.S. indices show a massive spike. The Dow Jones is up 1,390 points (3.7%) within 10 minutes of its release.
April 7, 10:13 a.m. Washington, 4:13 p.m. Berlin, 5:13 p.m. Moscow
The Walter Bloomberg X account (848,000 followers) publishes a near word-for-word copy of the Hammer Capital post, minus the comment about “squeezes.” The post gets an estimated 1.2 million views within half an hour.
The post on the Walter Bloomberg account (now deleted). The time in the screenshot corresponds to the Pacific Time Zone (Los Angeles, Seattle)
It is unknown if a real person named Walter Bloomberg exists. The account bio reads: “Promote your firm on our feed.” The website listed in the account has been down for at least 18 months. The day before, on Apr. 6, Bill Ackman retweeted posts from this account.
Both Walter Bloomberg and Hammer Capital would later claim to have picked up the headline from CNBC and Reuters, but as we would later see, that was not the case: the major publications published the story later.
April 7, 10:15 a.m. Washington, 4:15 p.m. Berlin, 5:15 p.m. Moscow
CNBC's “Squawk on the Street” features Jeremy Siegel, a professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Siegel criticizes Trump's economic management, calling the introduction of tariffs “the biggest policy mistake in 95 years.”
Jeremy Siegel on CNBC, Apr. 7, 2025
The screen displays charts of major U.S. trading indices showing significant growth. Jim Cramer, the host, reads out the news headlines from Europe, quoting Ursula von der Leyen's statement, while his co-hosts David Faber and Carl Quintanilla also analyze news feeds, trying to explain the cause of such a sharp rise in stock prices.
Quintanilla cites some “headline,” repeating Walter Bloomberg's X post word for word. “We're trying to source that exactly in terms of where that's coming from,” notes Faber. “That changes the game,” Siegel says in reaction to the news.
April 7, 10:17 a.m. Washington, 4:17 p.m. Berlin, 5:17 p.m. Moscow
The major U.S. trading indices plunge. In 20 minutes, the Dow Jones loses 1,898 points (4.8%).
April 7, 10:20 a.m. Washington, 4:20 p.m. Berlin, 5:20 p.m. Moscow
The Reuters website posts a short news article titled “ Wall Street reverses course after Hassett's comments on tariff pause.” A Reuters reporter in Bangalore notes that the Dow Jones has started an upward climb and repeats Hassett's alleged quote that Trump is considering a 90-day timeout, citing an unidentified “interview.”
April 7, 10:27 a.m. Washington, 4:27 p.m. Berlin, 5:27 p.m. Moscow
CNBC reporter Jason Abbruzzese asks the anonymous Hammer Capital account where it got the headline about the 90-day pause. Hammer Capital cites CNBC and Reuters.
The time on the screenshot corresponds to Central European time (Berlin, Paris)
Meanwhile, Walter Bloomberg deletes his X post, and in response to accusations of market manipulation, claims that he had also seen the headline on Reuters.
April 7, 10:33 a.m. Washington, 4:33 p.m. Berlin, 5:33 p.m. Moscow
CNBC reports that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has called rumors of a moratorium on trade duties “fake news.”
April 7, 11:36 a.m. Washington, 5:36 p.m. Berlin, 6:36 p.m. Moscow
Reuters changes the text of its news article, removes mention of Hassett's “interview,” and notes that the White House called reports of the pause “fake.”
April 7, 12:28 a.m. Washington, 6:28 p.m. Berlin, 7:28 p.m. Moscow
Reuters replaces the news item with a note saying that the article has been withdrawn.
April 8, 9:47 a.m. Washington, 3:30 p.m. Berlin, 4:30 p.m. Moscow
Minutes after markets in New York open, Yahoo Finance reports: “Dow pops 1,300 points as S&P, Nasdaq surge on hopes for Trump tariff deals.”