Fake Tweet Claiming Assad Is Dead Affects Oil Markets 104
An anonymous reader writes "Apparently someone set up a fake Twitter account under the name of a Russian Foreign Minister and said President Assad of Syria had been hurt/killed. From the article: 'The ministry and the embassy denied the veracity of the report and a message later appeared on the same Twitter account saying "this account is a hoax." It did not say what the aim of the hoax was although it had briefly affected oil markets.'"
PROFIT! (Score:5, Funny)
1. Send fake tweet
2. Buy oil stocks after they go down
3. Sell them after they go up again
4. PROFIT!
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1. Send fake tweet
2. Buy oil stocks after they go up [valuewalk.com]
3. Sell them after they go down again
4. BUSTED!
FTFY
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1. Send fake tweet
2. Buy oil futures options in a long straddle [wikipedia.org].
3. Sell them after the commodity goes up or down. Either way:
4. PROFIT!
Jeez! Do I have to teach you folks everything?
Re:PROFIT! (Score:4, Insightful)
WRT long straddle or for that matter the very existence of a stock option derivative added to the fact that commodities traders don't take physical delivery, I simply refuse to accept any argument that the markets are distinguishable from casino gambling (other than having an exceptionally toothless gambling commission).
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I simply refuse to accept any argument that the markets are distinguishable from casino gambling (other than having an exceptionally toothless gambling commission).
Here's the difference:
In the financial world when you gamble with other people's money and lose big:
a) you get a bailout and get to keep your bonuses and previous cut of the winnings.
or
b) your transactions get rolled back (see the HFT rollbacks).
In casinos when you gamble with other people's money and lose big, I don't think the outcomes are as rosy.
It's not mere toothlessness when they rollback HFT trades because of bugs in favoured _players_ systems (it's fine to rollback if it's due to bugs in the "casi
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Oh, you mean like the Knight Capital debacle where everyone got a free showing of "HFT market-maker gone wild"? The one where they lost over $400 million on 150 stocks? Trades were busted on only a handful of stocks based on preexisting price rules (IIRC, rules set in place to combat the uncertainty of ad-hoc or politically-motivated busting in response to the May 6 Flash Crash). All other trades stand.
Now, if Knight gets a "Wall St. Bailou
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As I stated in my post, the existing cross-exchange price rules on trade cancellation were created in response to this event. So it's not a very good example of unfairness, because, well... the rule-makers agreed with you. The unpredictability of bust-or-no-bust made hedging decisions impossible for everyone involved.
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They canceled trades in the recent incident when the price exceeded predetermined bands. Why do they cancel trades at all? Well, to be honest I'm not exactly sure... I suppose there's some intent of "protecting investors" or "maintaining confidence in the markets". But anyone writing an automated trading system could have programmed in the rules to halt when trade prices exceeded the bands, so at least in the recent inc
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Name a recent event. Really, I don't follow the news that closely, and as far as I know the trade-bust rules have become much more consistent as of the last few years.
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They have, but they systematically favor larger players. Smaller players can't even afford the sort of trading that can get rolled back.
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If you're referring to capital limits or the fact that small players can go bankrupt before they accidentally push a price through the limit, then I agree with you but I don't really see an alternative. Traders who can weather larger losses will always win.
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They could start with basic fairness, no rollbacks, you broke it, you bought it.
I can understand that some things are structurally unfair and there's not much for the market to do about it, but there's no need to introduce additional unfairness.
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Knight made a HUUUUUUGE mistake. Their new program bought high and sold low, and apparently nobody was watching to make sure it was working right. They got a partial rollback. Had I as a small trader made a mistake proportionally that bad, I would get nothing.
Knight got a 'private bailout' in the form of a $400million investment from other financial companies. That certainly beats the public bailouts, but it still shows the point. Name a '99%er' who could accidentally bankrupt himself and get bailed out by
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There's a purpose to it. Take a perishable good - bananas, say. Imagine that you live in a port that imports bananas and sells them to the locals. Sometimes there are lots of banana ships coming in, and sometimes there are only a few. This makes the price of bananas go up and down. Consumers don't like this - they prefer to have a steady banana price.
So you start a business. You buy a big refrigerated warehouse. When banana prices are low, you buy them; when prices are high, you sell them. From this
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Except that you can't actually STORE bananas for very long if you hope to sell them. The small window dictated by the spoilage rate of bananas dictates that you can't do very much to stabilize the price, all you can do is drive it up a bit and pocket the difference. It's not like you can actually smooth out a bumper crop or a bad year.
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So can a reseller who has the since to not implement just (almost sorta) in time warehousing.
Another way to stabilize the pricing is to do away with the whole damned thing and sell the product through a typical supply chain. That is, make the effort to gouge from what everyone knows is just a small hiccup in the shipping more trouble than it's worth.
Put another way, quit de-stabilizing the system by panicking every time someone sneezes and the system will find it's own minima.
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1. Buy oil stocks
2. Send fake tweet
3. Sell oil stocks after they go up
4. Profit
Not like it's that hard to figure out?
Alternative 2:
1. Send fake tweet.
2. Short oil stocks after they go up
3. Buy back and return after they go down again.
4. Profit
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Missing plot twist: the fake Russian Foreign Ministry account was actually operated by the real Russian Foreign Minister, who is also the one who also bought the stocks!
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2. Create fake tweet that Steve Ballmer resigned.
3. Sell stock.
4. MEGA-PROFIT!
Re:PROFIT! (Score:5, Funny)
1. Buy Facebook stock
2.
No, wait...
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Replace oil futures report with fake report. Short sale all of the oil futures. Wait for real oil futures report to be broadcast.
Get even with the rich old white people that ruined your life.
What were we talking about again?
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When I first heard this I assumed oil stocks would go up, you'd short sell and repurchase them after they went back down. So be careful how you manipulate the market, the result may not be what you expect.
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No they couldn't have, becuase you post as AC. Besides, nobody wants to partner with someone who can't even speak properly.
Are you the type of person who would cut off your nose despite your face?
Do you consider things for all intensive purposes?
Do you think I am making a mute point?
Maybe you could care less?
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Loose could feasibly be used in this context in the same sense that you loose the dogs of war, and are letting go of the grammar nazi act.
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Lose, not loose.
-The grammar Fuhrer
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Lose, not loose.
-The grammar Fuhrer
Thank you for your helpful correction's.
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Lose, not loose.
-The grammar Fuhrer
Thank you for your helpful correction's.
We have no wish to invade further postings.
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Lose, not loose.
-The grammar Fuhrer
Thank you for your helpful correction's.
Needs more apostrophes.
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*I'm
Parse error: "Improve it beyond being a pedantic shit."
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whooosh
(At least you spotted *one* of the (deliberate) mistakes,though, to give credit where it's due.)
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No they couldn't have, becuase you post as AC. Besides, nobody wants to partner with someone who can't even speak properly.
Are you the type of person who would cut off your nose despite your face?
Do you consider things for all intensive purposes?
Do you think I am making a mute point?
Maybe you could care less?
Now you are just acting totally retarted. This is just too rediculous to continue. :p
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No they couldn't have, becuase you post as AC. Besides, nobody wants to partner with someone who can't even speak properly.
Are you the type of person who would cut off your nose despite your face?
Do you consider things for all intensive purposes?
Do you think I am making a mute point?
Maybe you could care less?
Now you are just acting totally retarted. This is just too rediculous to continue. :p
To be honest, you see this alot online.
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More then you used too, that's for sure.
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More then you used too, that's for sure.
Took a few moments to figure out where the Fuck-Up Fairy struck on that one. Then suddenly, viola! There it was.
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More then you used too, that's for sure.
Took a few moments too figure out ware the Fuck-Up Fairy struck on that won. Than suddenly, viola! Their it was.
FTFY
Fake tweet?? (Score:1)
So this was a *real* tweet with fraudulent information in it... how does that make it a "fake tweet"?
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It's fake the same way as your tweets you're nailing a chick who laughs at your humor.
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I would tweet that, except nobody would believe me.
Re:Fake tweet?? (Score:5, Funny)
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The tweet is fake because Bashar isn't dead. He's just resting. Remarkable dictators the Assad family. Lovely oil fields.
He's pining for the fjords.
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Don't worry. I've received a bunch of overrateds and redundants to make up for it.
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So this was a *real* tweet with fraudulent information in it... how does that make it a "fake tweet"?
I think the "fake" part was not the misinformation (which is par for the course) but the fact that the tweet was supposedly a tweet from a Russian foreign minister, but actually was not.
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It is true.
President Assad was killed.
But he got better.
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It is true.
President Assad was killed.
But he got better.
No, he got better from when he was turned into a newt.
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a NEWT!?
See the glory of.... (Score:5, Insightful)
So real money is gained and lost as imaginary value is created and destroyed based on imaginary things happening to real people.
The stock markets are nothing more than a scam, a fixed game, and this event only serves to underline the fact. Don't play the game.
Re:See the glory of.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't quite get your point. Since value is frequently defined in terms of scarcity, are you saying events that could create even a temporary drop in supply shouldn't have an effect on the value (as a function of the relative scarcity)?
Sure the this tweet was fake and doubtless was quickly corrected, but let's pretend it was true. Most assuredly it would alter the supply of oil, and hence it's value. But you don't that reflected in the price?
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Why? They sell on a 12 month contract and as far as I know, the king leaves the actual work to others anyway. Meanwhile, their production is 1/20th of the U.S. domestic production. None of their oil goes to the U.S.
Given all of that, it would be hard to justify prices moving by more than $1/bbl in a rational market. But of course, the market if more pack of panicky animals than it is rational.
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1. Legal documents don't magically influence supply.
2. Commodities are globally priced. Are you arguing that the US force domestic producers sell at a lower price than the open market can supply? Will you also insist closely aligned foreign producers take a hit on prices?
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1. Nor does a dead king.
2. No, I'm suggesting that if Syria shut down entirely, there would be less than a 1% deficit and they would likely make up the shortfall within a reasonable time.. Given that there is a 6 week pipeline and many producers are not at capacity due to market conditions, it would be hard to justify more than a percent or so price increase. If THE OPEN MARKET pushed it higher than that, it would be based on gouging and irrational panic rather than actual supply and demand.
Added in, since
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Meanwhile, their production is 1/20th of the U.S. domestic production. None of their oil goes to the U.S.
Fact one: Syria has substantial oil production.
Fact two: the "king" in question is the head of state for an unstable, authoritarian government.
Fact three: a country in full blown civil war, which is what could happen with the death of Assad, won't be producing much oil for sale. A lot of infrastructure would be broken as well, depressing Syria's future oil production.
Fact four: In the event of a civil war, the fun and games could extend to other countries with greater oil production, leading possib
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Syria is NOT [indexmundi.com] a major [cia.gov] producer.
And prices spiked by a bit over dollar on an unfounded rumor from a tweet. That sure sounds like a bunch of panicky animals to me. A rational market might consider that any id10t can tweet.
The price was 1.17 since, in fact, nobody died and absolutely nothing changed except someone yelled BOO (in a silly voice). The $1 change would be about right IF the death was real and Syria simply exited the oil market entirely as a result. That $1 is generous considering the elasticity of S
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Fact one: Syria has substantial oil production.
Eh... In 2009, they were 31st in the world, behind North Dakota. [wikipedia.org] They were producing about 400k bbl/day, or 0.48% of the world's production. (More on this later.)
Fact two: the "king" in question is the head of state for an unstable, authoritarian government.
There's been, more or less, a civil war in the country for about 17 months. And by their own reports [oilandgaseurasia.com], production is down to 200k bbl/day or less. The instability of Syria should be already priced in to a rational market.
Fact three: a country in full blown civil war, which is what could happen with the death of Assad, won't be producing much oil for sale. A lot of infrastructure would be broken as well, depressing Syria's future oil production.
Discussed immediately above, but to repeat, production is already depressed to less than one quarter of one percent of the wor
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It could be an excuse to claim shipping to the U.S. would need to be re-arranged and that that would incur a cost on the U.S. market. I was just pointing out that that's not the case.
The part that really matters for the cost is that they produce well less than 1% of the world's crude and that the other producers have excess capacity due to market conditions (that is, there is supply elasticity) that can easily take up the slack and more even if Syria exited the market forever.
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Overly sharp moves are not, by themselves, an indication of irrationality. Suppose, for example, you had a large sum of money on deposit in a particular bank. And you heard a rumor that the bank was about to fail. If the rumor seemed to you to be reasonably credible you'd want to move your money to another bank. And so would many others who heard that rumor. Maybe nothing will happen, bu
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And you heard a rumor that the bank was about to fail.
What if I hear a rumor from some random Joe that someone might possibly be considering shifting less than 1 percent of the bank's total deposits elsewhere? That would be a lot closer to the situation we saw.
As for the rest, you got the sense backwards. The natural expectation would be a rise (if anything happened at all). I might well expect a rise, but mostly because the other traders are too irrational to consider the long list of mitigating factors. The way the market is structured makes it into an panic
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Since value is frequently defined in terms of scarcity
No. Price may be determined by scarcity, not value.
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Scarcity is real. If you don't believe me, think to yourself when you ABSOLUTELY need a pen or a pencil how much you'd be willing to pay for a Bic ball point that comes in a 10 pack for 4 bucks.
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Scarcity is real. If you don't believe me, think to yourself when you ABSOLUTELY need a pen or a pencil how much you'd be willing to pay for a Bic ball point that comes in a 10 pack for 4 bucks.
Reminds me of the econ professor I had who would provide you with a blue book on exam day if you forgot yours.
For a mere $2.
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So real money is gained and lost as imaginary value is created and destroyed
The value of "real" money itself is only a convenient fiction.
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The value of "real" money itself is only a convenient fiction.
At least it buys you your daily meals, that is not fictive
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Oil markets affected.. in what way? (Score:2, Informative)
The article says nothing about in what way the oil markets were affected, so to spare you having to RTFA I'll copy it below:
MOSCOW, Aug 6 (Reuters) - A Twitter user sent a hoax message on Monday that quoted Russia's ambassador to Damascus as saying Syrian President Bashar al-Assad may have been killed, forcing Russian officials to quickly deny the report.
A user on the social networking site apparently pretending to be Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev quoted the envoy, Sergei Kirpichenko, as sa
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And we still don't know HOW the oil markets were affected (did they go up or down). Your post was pointless.
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Bongoots 0 - 1 cpu6502
Isn't this why you love Slashdot? Oh the irony.
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Yeah, they also didn't say what time the tweet went out. What lazy reporting. Apparently, this is the twitter feed [twitter.com]. The first announcement went out at 9:59am. You can see a price spike a little after 10am [yahoo.com] (sadly, that link will probably be invalid after today), but the price stays up even after it was revealed as a hoax.
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Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Re:Oil markets affected.. in what way? (Score:5, Insightful)
That describes 99% of reporting on the financial markets.
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That describes 99% of reporting on the financial markets.
I think "that's not even wrong" does a better job.
You know the economy is hosed when... (Score:2)
...the stock market is run by robots that react to Twitter feeds.
"Just secured 1 gazillion dollar line of credit from JP Morgan" @dave562
Woo hoo... my personal stock is up 10% bitchez!!!!