The Ambac rumors on CNBC

Barry Ritholtz writes on his The Big Picture blog that he wonders who fed CNBC reporter Charles Gasparino information about the bailout of Ambac Financial that turned out to be false.

Ritholtz wrote, “Then we learn that the deal was dead, and that Ambac needs to raise $1.5 billion dollars. Thus, all of those rumors and CNBC appear to have been patently false.

“But here’s the question that keeps coming up: Who are the people leaking this information? And, is this legal? Now, we have learned that all of these attempts at manipulating the market were based on rumors that proved to be false.”

Later, he wrote, “CNBC reporter Charlie Gasparino has repeatedly caveated this to death on any of his reporting: He recommended people be ‘cautious’ about trading on the latest rumors, and specifically noted that a deal has been rumored to be ‘close’ before and none had come to pass.”

Read more here.