People Are Accidentally Buying Stocks With The Name ‘Oculus’

People Are Accidentally Buying Stocks With The Name ‘Oculus’

When Facebook spends two billion on something , people take notice….though perhaps in this case, they didn’t pay close enough attention.

CNN reports that following the announcement of the Oculus Rift acquisition by Facebook, stocks belonging Oculus VisionTech (a digital media company) and Oculus Innovative Sciences (a biotechnology company) saw a spike in price thanks to investors who mistook them for the actual Oculus VR company.

Oculus VisionTech in particular surged nearly 90%, while Oculus Innovative Sciences rose 8%.

“It would have been nice, but it’s definitively a misunderstanding,” said Tony Drescher, Director and Chief Financial Officer of Oculus VisionTech. “We’re not in the virtual reality business.”

Both companies are now seeing a small dip after the initial surge, but still: kind of funny, no?

Facebook shares, meanwhile, fell more than 5% on Wednesday after the deal was announced. The Wall Street Journal attributes investors being sceptical of the Oculus Rift acquisition to Facebook purchasing WhatsApp for $US16 billion recently, as well as unhappy Oculus Kickstarter backers.

Top Image: Shutterstock

(Via CNN Money)


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