Ex-New York Times Hack Stealth Deletes Misleading Stock Market Tweet During Trump’s Speech

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Mar 14, 2020

A former New York Times reporter tried to link President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency during his Friday Rose Garden speech to declining values of the stock market in a tweet. He stealth deleted his tweet minutes later when it became clear stock markets were rebounding in force as a result of the speech.

Jim Roberts linked a 300 point decline in the Dow Jones index to the beginning of Trump’s speech. It seemed to escape him at the time that stock prices were declining independently of Trump’s planned speech, in which he announced the formal declaration of a state of emergency.

 

Within the hour, it became clear that stock market prices were not declining as a result of the speech, but in fact rebounding strongly. Friday proved to be the strongest single-day rally for the market since 2008, providing some much-needed confidence in markets after a dismal week filled with fear over the raging Chinese coronavirus.

Roberts went on to delete his totally misleading tweet, without much of an explanation. He simply replaced it with a tweet claiming Trump had put on a speech totally aimed at instilling confidence in investors and big business.

Which one is it? Is Trump tanking the stock markets with great consequences or is he merely propping up Wall Street with fake displays of competence? Either way, Jim Roberts has made it clear that he’s far from an objective reporter who can fairly report on presidential news one way or another.

He’s yet to issue a formal clarification of his misleading, early tweet or explain exactly why he deleted it as of Friday night.