Following a weekend of uncertainty over whether President Donald Trump would double down or retreat on last week's tariff announcement, stocks opened sharply lower Monday morning before spiking nearly 10 percent on reports that the White House was considering a 90-day pause on the implementation of tariffs.
But there was one problem: That report was wrong.
The initial report of a "pause" appeared to be the sole reason for a staggering $6 trillion swing in S&P market capitalization that took place over the span of half an hour. Here's how it happened.
The "pause" report initially came from X user "Walter Bloomberg" a.k.a. @DeItaone, a popular account with 850,000 followers that posts business headlines, often straight from the Bloomberg terminal (the user has no relation to Bloomberg LP).
At 10:13 a.m. ET, @DeItaone posted a tweet that appeared to be based off a clip of a Fox News interview that White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett gave earlier Monday morning, which itself was posted to X by Aaron Rupar, a.k.a. @atrupar, another popular account that posts anti-Trump clips, at 8:33 a.m. ET.
Hassett was asked during Fox the interview if Trump would consider a 90-day pause on his tariff plan.
He replied: "Yep, you know, I think the president is going to decide what the president's going to decide."
Hassett's "yep" may have been the word that triggered the headline, though he appeared to just be acknowledging the Fox interviewer's question.
Five minutes after the @DeItaone post was published, the S&P had added more than $3 trillion from its morning low.
Ten minutes after that, CNBC reported the White House was "unaware" of the reports of a coming pause. Stocks had begun to slide again at that point, with losses accelerating after the White House officially called the reports of a pause "fake news" at 10:39 a.m. ET.
@DeItaone later deleted his post but replied to followers that the headline came from the Reuters news agency.
Reuters moved the following "flash" on its wire, which was published online at 10:27 a.m. ET: "Wall Street's main indexes reversed course and moved sharply higher after White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said in an interview that President Donald Trump was considering a 90-day tariff pause on all countries expect China."
It was not immediately clear if the Reuters report was based on a separate misreading of the Hassett interview.
By 10:40 a.m. ET, the S&P had erased some $2.5 trillion from the high it had reached just 20 minutes prior. In all, Wall Street created and vaporized nearly $6 trillion in market capitalization in the span of 30 minutes, highlighting the extent of the jitters that are materializing across various sectors of the economy over the tariff policy and its rollout.
"There's no real accountability in these situations," CNN media analyst Brian Stelter said afterwards. "When a random user on social media says something people want to hear, it can drive the market. I think what it tells us is that investors are on a hair-trigger alert."