Twitter shares soar on phony Bloomberg story

Shares of Twitter briefly popped up more than 8 percent yesterday following the circulation of a fake Bloomberg News story indicating the struggling social media platform had received a $31 billion buyout offer.

The stock retreated and closed up only 2.6 percent after it became clear the article was a hoax, according to CNNMoney.

The story looked legit at first glance. It appeared on a website that looked nearly identical to Bloomberg, but the URL was Bloomberg.market instead of Bloomberg.com. A Bloomberg spokesman confirmed the story was not affiliated with the news network, was fake and appeared on a bogus website.

Read more from CNNMoney.