MarketWatch, 2-Apr-15
By Bruce Golding
A savvy stock trader scored a $2.4 million windfall by using a tweet about a possible tech deal to outrace a herd of rival bulls.
The unidentified Wall Street whiz paid $110,530 on Friday afternoon for the right to buy around 300,000 shares in computer-chip maker Altera at $36 a share, according to reports.
At the time, Altera ALTR, +2.32% was trading at about $34.76 a share, and the trader’s “call” options cost a measly 35 cents each because the stock ordinarily wouldn’t be expected to hit the $36 mark.
But within just 28 minutes, Altera shares had soared in the wake of a Wall Street Journal reporter’s tweet that the company was “in talks” to get bought out by Intel INTC, +0.06% reports said.
By exercising the options to buy the Altera stock at $36 a share, then selling it for more, the trader made about $2.4 million in net profit, reports said.
Fortune noted on Wednesday that the extremely well-timed maneuver came less than a minute after the Journal reporter’s tweet at 3:32 p.m.
The tweet, along with a simultaneous headline sent out via the WSJ’s newswire service, prompted Nasdaq to suspend trading in Altera at 3:35 p.m.
But by then, the trader had already purchased the options and was on the road to riches.
Investment strategist Mike Khouw told CNBC there were several ways the trader might have been able to move so swiftly.
They include having seen the tweet at just the right moment, or having known about the possible deal ahead of time and reacting as soon as the news broke.
Khouw also speculated that an automated computer program — or “bot” — could have alerted the trader to the tweet.
“A bot is not as outlandish as it sounds,” Khouw told the cable network.
“Traders need to aggregate and filter through tremendous amounts of data quickly and will rely on technology to help if it is available.”
Fortune also suggested that the trade itself was automated and was executed by a computer that had been programmed to scan Twitter for the reporter’s tweets and act on any that included key phrases like “is in talks.”
Meanwhile, neither Altera nor Intel has confirmed the takeover report, and Altera shares closed down about 1.2 percent on Wednesday, at $42.41 per share.
