Market drops on accidental tweet about ECB rate

The London markets started to plunge ahead of Thursday’s ECB announcement after a media organisation reported that the European Central Bank left interest rates unchanged.

In what was a case of having a story ready to go in time for the announcement, The Financial Times tweeted and published a story just under 10 minutes before the announcement.

The premature news sent the markets on an early downward spiral, before recovering slightly once traders realised it wasn’t the case.

The Financial Times has since issued an explanation and an apology, saying it was one of two pre-written stories covering different possible decisions.

"Due to an editing error it was published when it should not have been," it said.

"Automated feeds meant that the initial error was compounded by being simultaneously published on Twitter.

"The FT deeply regrets this serious mistake and will immediately be reviewing its publication and workflow processes to ensure such an error cannot happen again."

At 12:45pm, the ECB announced that it cut its deposit facility rate to -0.3%, which then sent markets plunging again.