Twitter's release today of its disappointing earnings in the first quarter was pre-empted by four tweets from a financial services company.
The tweets from Selerity caused Twitter's share price to slide; trading in its shares was halted.
Selerity, in a subsequent tweet said:
As NPR's Laura Sydell tells our Newscast unit Twitter's official results disappointed Wall Street. The social media site continued to bring in new users, but it's ad revenue didn't measure up to expectations. Laura says:
"Twitter's revenue actually rose over last year by nearly 75 percent. But that didn't keep Wall street analysts happy. Twitter isn't get new users as quickly as other popular social media companies but it has made a lot of money from the users it has. The company has about 302 million users — whereas Facebook has nearly a billion and a half. Still Twitter has a fraction of 1 percent of the digital ad market. Facebook has 8 percent and Google has more than 30 percent."
Twitter shares were down 18 percent at the close of trading today.
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