Market LookBeck II

(Reuters) - Global equities markets rose on Tuesday, recovering from a brief tumble on a false report of explosions at the White house, while the euro dipped as weak economic data from Germany raised hopes the European Central Bank may further ease monetary policy.

Shortly after 1 p.m. ET (1700 GMT) markets for stocks, bonds, oil, gold and commodities were briefly roiled following an Associated Press tweet, quickly shot down as bogus, reporting two explosions at the White House in which President Barack Obama had been injured.

U.S. government debt prices surged briefly while, according to Reuters data, the benchmark S&P 500 index fell 14.6 points, or 0.93 percent, in the space of three minutes when news of the tweet hit the market.

An Associated Press spokesman told Reuters the AP Twitter message was "bogus" and the White House said Obama was fine.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commision is looking into the issue, SEC Commissioner Daniel Gallagher said.

With the S&P valued at roughly $14.6 trillion at the moment of the false tweet, that three-minute plunge briefly wiped out $136.5 billion of the index's value.

"If that was true that had happened, that's a justified selloff, but because people suffer from information overload, people tend to overreact and don't wait to substantiate things - that is the downside to a 24/7 news cycle," said Jason Weisberg, managing director of Seaport Securities Corp in New York.

"You want instantaneous pricing, you want all the advantages of the technology, well then, you have to live by the negatives that the speed and expediency provide."

The move echoed the May 6, 2010 plunge in markets known as the "flash crash," when the Dow industrials dropped more than 600 points, eventually piling up a loss of about 1,000 points, in a few minutes before recovering.

The yen saw brief volatility following the AP tweet. But after it was denied and the tweet was blamed on hackers, traders quickly moved on. Global equity markets also resumed their upward trend.

The euro dropped to a two-week low against the dollar as weak German data raised concerns about the health of the euro zone economy and revived speculation that the European Central Bank could cut interest rates.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 152.29 points, or 1.05 percent, at 14,719.46. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 16.28 points, or 1.04 percent, at 1,578.78. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 35.78 points, or 1.11 percent, at 3,269.33.

After the bell on Wall Street, Apple shares rose 3.8 percent after the company reported better-than-expected second-quarter revenue of $43.6 billion, reflecting strong sales of the iPad and iPhone.

European shares posted their biggest one-day gain in seven months.

The euro fell 0.3 percent to 129.22 yen, still down from its April 11 three-year peak around 131.10. The yen, which typically rises as investors seek safety during times of heightened concern about the global economy, recovered broadly.

The dollar last traded up 0.3 percent at 99.45 yen.

MSCI's world equity index, which is heavily weighted toward U.S. shares, was up 1 percent.

In Treasuries, the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note was down 4/32, with the yield at 1.7065 percent.

TWITTER FLASH CRASH

Earlier during the market turmoil caused by the false tweet, more than 180,000 front month 10-year Treasury futures contacts traded between 1:09 and 1:12 p.m. ET (1709 to 1712 GMT).

"I think there was a lot of damage done on that," said Sean Murphy, treasuries trader at Societe Generale in New York.

"Automatically electronic trading kicks in and they don't know the difference between a fictitious story and the truth and immediately started to buy and took us right back to the day's highs."

Crude oil fell as much as 70 cents a barrel in those three minutes but just as quickly reversed those losses as it became clear the message was false.

U.S. gold futures spiked more than $5 an ounce or 0.4 percent after the tweet but five minutes later were trading lower.

By the end of the day, Brent crude oil had edged down in reaction to weak manufacturing data inChina and Europe but it closed above $100 a barrel for the second straight day.

June Brent crude settled down 8 cents at $100.31 a barrel, after falling by more than $1.50 in earlier trading. U.S. crude for June delivery settled down 1 cent at $89.18 a barrel after falling more than $1 in intraday trading.

The flash HSBC Purchasing Managers' Index for April fell to 50.5 from 51.6 in March as new export orders shrank in China. The data followed lower-than-expected GDP growth for China in the first quarter which helped spark a sharp sell-off last week