Stocks Briefly Spooked By 'Confirmed Fake' Report Of Explosion Near Pentagon

Update (1035ET): As we suspected, a Pentagon spokeserson has confirmed there has been no explosion at The Pentagon this morning.

So as we asked at the bottom: who started it?

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The S&P 500 kneejerked notably lower this morning after headlines hit social media of an explosion near the Pentagon.

While completely unconfirmed, a number of media outlets are showing the images (and some are deleting it already)...

Interestingly this is being amplified in Ukraine/Russia...

Many reactions are that this is fake and we tend to agree given the total lack of confirmation by any major media outlet. If so, the most important question is - who started it?

Welcome to the future of AI-created propaganda images

Faked AI images moving markets...welcome to the future... 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

— Michael Brown (@MrMBrown) May 22, 2023