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Wall Street Tweets Through a Banking Crisis

Smartphones and social media weren’t nearly as prevalent in 2008, but this time the financial turmoil is playing out online.

Bill Ackman, chief executive officer of Pershing Square Capital Management LP, speaks during a Bloomberg Television interview.

Bill Ackman, chief executive officer of Pershing Square Capital Management LP, speaks during a Bloomberg Television interview.

Photographer: Christopher Goodney/Bloomberg
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Billionaire investor Bill Ackman, aka @BillAckman, tweeted to his more than 600,000 followers last Saturday that a trusted source had bad news — very bad news — about beleaguered Silicon Valley Bank.

Depositors were going lose roughly half of their money. And without action from regulators, bank runs would start on Monday. That didn’t happen. On Friday, after gaining almost 50,000 new followers, he was at it again, tweeting that he was “hearing” that Bank of America would buy Signature Bank on Monday. Time will tell.