Activision's earnings report was leaked early and it halted trading of the stock

Thomson Reuters

Activision's booth at E3 2014, where "Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare" was a major feature.

• Q1 financial results for Activision, the massive video game company behind blockbuster franchises like "Call of Duty" and "Destiny," were accidentally published hours early by news outlet Dow Jones.
• Shares of Activision were abruptly halted following the error, but not before the stock had a wild swing.
• Dow Jones said it regretted the error and was "reviewing" its processes.

Video game giant Activision had an action-packed afternoon on Thursday after its quarterly financial results were accidentally published hours ahead of schedule by Dow Jones, causing the stock to spike and plummet before trading was abruptly halted.

The company's first quarter results were scheduled to be published on Thursday at 4:30 p.m. ET, after the stock market's regular trading session closes. But information from the embargoed report was accidentally published around 1 p.m. ET, during regular market hours by Dow Jones Newswire.

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The news agency confirmed the mistake in a statement to CNBC: "We regret our error as well as inadvertently breaking the embargo. We have issued a correction and are reviewing our processes."

It was not immediately clear whether the mistake by the newswire was due to human error, a computer glitch or some other factor.

Immediately after the report went live, Activision stock spiked - and then slowly crashed. When the error was noticed, soon after 2 p.m. ET, trading on Activision stock was halted. It ended down 5%, overall, hours ahead of normal market close.

Business Insider

According to the accidentally published report, Activision beat expectations with over $1.7 billion in revenue for Q1 2018.

Representatives for Activision did not respond to a request for comment as of publishing.