Nasdaq apologises for letting Twitter results fly out ahead of time, blames Shareholder.com

Nasdaq was yesterday forced to apologise for the early release of Twitter’s earnings, blaming an “operational” error that lasted just 45 seconds.

 

Twitter’s share price plunged nearly nine per cent yesterday, following a 20 per cent tumble on Tuesday when the social media site’s below-estimate quarterly earnings were announced early.

 

Nasdaq blamed its investor relations arm Shareholder.com – the same unit that prematurely released JP Morgan’s results last October.

 

“The posting was caused by an operational issue that exposed the release on Twitter’s IR website for approximately 45 seconds,” a Nasdaq spokesman said. “During those seconds the site was scraped by a third party that publicly disseminated the earnings information.”

 

 

“We regret the incident and remain fully committed to providing the highest-quality investor relations communication product and services to our clients,” the spokesman said.

 

Twitter said it asked the New York Stock Exchange to halt trading when it heard its numbers were out, then published results as soon as possible.

 

Yesterday Twitter chief executive Dick Costolo told CNBC the early release “wasn’t a particularly pleasant experience” and said he wanted to discuss it with Nasdaq.

 

“Whenever you outsource something to a third party, it is because they have competences where you don’t have competences.” he said. 

 

“It is absolutely something we need to talk about.”