165 Hedge Fund Suddenly Cried Out In Terror And Were Suddenly Silenced

Zero hedge had the best one liner about the fiasco that hit google today, so I decided to use it as the title to this thread.

Zero Hedge

To make a long story short. Somehow google earnings were released early today mid market instead of after the close. The earnings were also a disappointment. I don't believe this is the first time ever something like this has happened but the affects on GOOG were immediate and drastic.

GOOG-From Yahoo Finance

The entire front page of Zerohedge is currently talking about this, and there are the usual and some unusual theories there.

I'm actually surprised that the DOW and S&P were pretty much flat and the NASDAQ was only down a 1% after a fiasco like this. An unexpected miss combined with an erroneous early release by a giant like Google with OPEX tomorrow, and you've got a recipe for a pretty big down day. (Not to mention the more believable than last week employment numbers that hit today).

I'm sure there is a giant foul up and maybe even a conspiracy somewhere in this story.

reply to post by jefwane


Yeah...saw this earlier today on the market watch FOX.

Guess I need to go read your link.....

Des

Premature release... hate it when that happens.

Originally posted by avatar01
Premature release... hate it when that happens.

I'll second that.....

Des

I just went to the Wall Street Journal to read up a little on this situation and saw something I never ever for the life of me thought I would see. A Gangnam Style video Seriously? The Wall Street Journal? What is this world coming to?

Edit to add the link is to the Wall Street Journal page

If someone hasn't figured out that the markets are as much a theatrical play as the US Presidential Debates then... well... you know what... go ahead and keep playing them.

reply to post by Agarta

Whoa.... News at all levels really has been reduced the the absolute lowest common denominator among the audience. I don't know what to say to seeing that, given where it's presented. Umm... At one time, I respected the WSJ for at least giving solid financial news at an ADULT level. sheesh.... it's show and tell in grade school there too, now.

The world must laugh endlessly at some of this. I think I can hear the dull roar when it's real quiet out and the wind blows just right.

The stock market whip-sawed all over the place today. They tried to keep it up higher than it deserved to be, but after hours, it is a different story.

My bet is on a bear market tomorrow.

As far as the Google fiasco, naturally it was done on purpose. I don't pretend to know the reason why, but these things are never accidental. If it wasn't for the safety net for stocks that drop too far too fast, Google would have been lower in the toilet, but they halt trading when a stock like Google starts to plummet.

It would be interesting to see who went bear on Google before this happened. Always follow the money.

reply to post by FissionSurplus


There is lots of options activity on both the put and call side on GOOG. Looking at future months expiry it does seem kinda large, but if I remember correctly GOOG always reports the day before OPEX, and there is always lots of open interest and volume on GOOG options during earnings because GOOG always moves a good bit one way or another at earnings. I'm not saying there was no one front running this but I haven't seen good evidence for it yet. Also short interest on GOOG as of 9-29-2012 was a little elevated but not outside the normal range over the past 12 months.

So, I don't know what happened. My gut feeling is that this was truly unexpected, at least the early release part. Several folks who follow GOOG have mentioned that mobile ad revenue isn't panning out like many thought it would. I think that if this was a true accidental early release, we will know soon enough, as the damage will be evident rather quickly.