On Thursday, July 16, Nordea released its interim figures for the second quarter. When the Stockholm Stock Exchange opened at 09:00, Bloomberg sent an incorrect so-called news flash, something that the Danish newspaper Børsen noticed.
“Nordea falls 6.4 percent after reporting a net profit below expectations,” Bloomberg wrote in its news terminal.
But both figures were incorrect. The stock did not fall by nearly 6 percent, and according to Bloomberg's own figures, the result was just over 3 percent higher than the average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg from equity analysts who cover Nordea.
We generally trust that news agencies do a good job, but sometimes you feel "wait a minute - this can't be true," says Lars Söderfjäll at the Bank of Åland.
Pressured the stock
Bloomberg's mistake put downward pressure on the stock, partly because some players, using algorithms, automatically sell shares based on news.
There are some players who sense the news flow and the flashes that come from Reuters, Bloomberg, the news agency Direkt, etc. Then the algorithms are programmed to trade on the news, says Söderfjäll, adding that the Bank of Åland does not use algorithmic trading.
Compared with Wednesday's closing price of SEK 186.15, Nordea's share fell by a maximum of 3 percent to SEK 180.55 at 09:01. This corresponds to a loss of around SEK 19 billion in market capitalization.
The stock recovered quickly and less than ten minutes after the stock market opened, Bloomberg corrected the data.
Contacted Bloomberg
"Correction: Nordea falls 0.5 percent after the quarterly report," the news agency wrote at 09.09.
Some of Bloomberg's alerts are automated, but it is unclear whether this was the case with the incorrect Nordea alert. Bloomberg has not responded to TT's questions.
Nordea contacted Bloomberg before the news agency corrected the information, according to the bank.
"We noted the error after the market opened on Thursday and have had a dialogue with Bloomberg about the matter," Nordea's press communicator Hugo Laigar writes to TT.
Nordea's share ultimately closed up 0.8 percent on the reporting day.
