一條推文讓twitter損失80億

By any measure, Twitter hit particularly rough conditions on Tuesday night, which sent its share price into a tailspin.
無論怎麼看，週二晚上Twitter陷入了棘手窘境，導致其股價大跌。

At one point in the final hours of trading, the stock had lost more than $8bn (£5bn), or 25% of its opening price.
就在股市交易最後幾小時中的某一時刻，市值損失了超過80億美元（50億英鎊），股價大跌25%。

What actually happened?
到底發生了什麼呢?

Twitter was due to announce its earnings for the first quarter of the year after close of trading on the New York Stock Exchange, where the company is listed.
Twitter是紐約證交所上市公司，本應在紐約證交所股市收盤時發佈第一季度的財報的。

Announcing results after the markets close gives investors a chance to digest the news, sleep on it, and then start trading again the next day.
股市收盤時才公佈結果可以讓投資者有機會消化下新聞內容、思考思考，第二天再開始交易。

Except it turns out that somebody thought it would be a good idea to release this information early, on the technology-led Nasdaq-run investor relations page for Twitter.
結果有人覺得提前發佈消息也不錯，便在科技主導、納斯達克經營的投資關係頁面上替Twitter提前把消息泄露了。

Initially it seemed no-one really noticed the error, until a well-placed tweet highlighteded the mistake and revealed Twitter's disappointing results.
一開始似乎也沒人注意到這個錯誤，直到那條醒目的推文泄露了Twitter令人失望的財報結果，才吸引了人們關注。

How come Selerity got the news early, and who are they anyway?
Selerity是怎麼事先得到消息的呢？Selerity又是什麼來頭？

Selerity is a tech start-up running a very specific service catereded to investors.
Selerity是一個給投資者提供專項服務的新興科技公司。

It automatically scans all sorts of documents, press releases, and social media online and looks for anything that could prove useful to investors.
會自動掃描各種文件、新聞發佈會和網絡社交媒體，並且尋找任何可能對投資者有利的信息。

It then reports back to subscribers with what it describes as real-time actionable intelligence.
然後Selerity把信息和所謂的實時可操作情報一併發給訂閱用戶。

In this case, it picked up the early Nasdaq posting.
這一次，Selerity獲取了納斯達克早先發布的信息。

The company then tweeted the figures under the hashtag "#breaking", ensuring that the world and his dog would know of Twitter's failings through its own service.
Selerity推送了數據並貼上“爆炸新聞”的標籤，確保全世界和Twitter的忠粉可以通過Twitter自己的平臺瞭解其衰落。

Selerity then tweeted its source, adding to Twitter's embarrassment by making it clear that the results had been neither leaked or hacked.
然後Selerity又把消息源推送了一遍，表明既不是消息走漏也不是被黑客攻擊所致，把Twitter推向了尷尬的境地。

So who is to blame?
到底怪誰呢？

Well, it seems that Nasdaq slipped up here after Twitter furnished the exchange with earnings details ahead of time ready for official publication.
當然了，比Twitter官方提前公佈了財報看似是納斯達克的錯。

It is like someone breaking an embargo on a news story.
這就像是有人解除了新聞報道的禁令。

The key factor in Tuesday evening's fiasco was that Selerity's automatic computer programs, called bots, which scan the web for juicy financial details, were able to find the mistake so quickly.
週二晚這次慘敗的關鍵在於Selerity的自動計算機程序bots。bots是一種能執行外部命令的自動運行型木馬，可以掃描網頁搜尋有利可圖的祕密信息。

Selerity then made sure that everyone knew about it through Twitter's own platform, but it did not break any rules in doing so as the results had already been published and were effectively in the public arena.
Selerity確保大家是通過Twitter自己的平臺知道消息，而過程卻沒有任何違規，讓財報結果得以發佈並且繪聲繪色地出現在公衆視野裏。

Nasdaq blamed the error on a division of its business called , which provides investor relations services.
納斯達克把這錯誤怪罪Shareholder網。Shareholder網是納斯達克的商務分支，提供投資關係服務。

It is not the first time this has happened.
這也不是第一次發生此類事件了。

Six months ago, Nasdaq accidentally published JPMorgan's quarterly results hours before close of trading.
六個月前，納斯達克在交易結束前幾小時意外地發佈了JP摩根的季度財報。

It has all left Twitter, which did not have great news to share with investors anyway, somewhat red-faced.
此次這麼一來，Twitter尷尬了，也沒有什麼利好消息可以和投資者分享了。