United Airlines (Ticker Symbol : UAUA) shares plummeted this morning on wall street before trading was brought to a halt. Apparently, the Florida Sun Sentinel published a six year old bankruptcy filing story as ‘current news’ leading to confusion and panic among UAL stock holders. The NASDAQ has already ruled that all stock trading that was carried out during a span of 13 minutes between 9:55 AM and 10:08 AM CT will be legitimate and not be cancelled. Trading was halted at 10:07 AM CT.
This wrong story brought down the whole airline sector and the sector was down about 20% this morning. There is no doubt a lot of share holders would have lost a ton of money as a result of this. The South Florida Sun Sentinel should start setting aside money in their budget to fight all the lawsuits that are going to be filed against them.
Shares of the Chicago-based carrier plunged to 1 cent from Friday’s close of $12.30, before trading was halted at about 10 a.m. The stock resumed trading on Nasdaq at 11:30 a.m., and by midday it was trading around $11.38, down 7% on the day.
Fallout from the mistaken report spread to the industry as a whole, pushing down airline stocks 20% at one point Monday morning, though at midday the sector recovered, too.
UAL in a statement said the South Florida Sun-Sentinel was responsible for its stock tanking after the paper posted as current news a six-year-old news story written by sister publication the Chicago Tribune. UAL filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2002, emerging in February 2006.
[Via : ChicagoBusiness.com]