“The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the origin of a false report on a CNN citizen journalist Web site that Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs had a heart attack and was hospitalized,” Connie Guglielmo reports for Bloomberg.
“The agency’s enforcement unit is trying to determine whether the iReport.com posting was intended to push down the company’s stock price. CNN is cooperating with the SEC’s probe, network spokeswoman Jennifer Martin said. The report is ‘not true,” Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said in an interview,” Guglielmo reports.
“Concern about Jobs’s health weighed on the shares this year, contributing to a 51 percent drop. The stock swing caused by today’s erroneous report drew renewed calls for Apple, which has said only that Jobs’s health is a ‘private matter,’ to be more forthcoming,” Guglielmo reports.
“The shares fell as much as 5.4 percent earlier today after the post on iReport.com cited an anonymous source saying Jobs was rushed to the hospital after suffering a ‘major heart attack.’ The report has been removed,” Guglielmo reports.
“John Heine, a spokesman for the SEC, declined to comment,” Guglielmo reports.
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