On Wednesday, Engadget posted a story in which they claimed that the June launch of the iPhone would be delayed until October, and that the launch of Leopard would be put off until January 2008. The source credited for the story was an internal Apple e-mail. The story turned out to be false, but the damage had already been done, as Apple's stock quickly fell 3%, losing $4 billion in value by the close of trading. Oops.

As soon as Apple got wind of the rumor and saw their stocks plummeting, they quickly issued a statement denying the Engadget rumors, and confirming that the iPhone would still ship in late June, and the the Leopard is also on track for an October shipment.

It's pretty obvious that Engadget got gamed, although being one of the top tech blogs out there, you'd assume that by now they've learned how to weed out the false rumors from the real ones. Nevertheless, the effect that their one story had on Apple stock yesterday is amazing, and speaks volumes for the weight that top blogs now have.

Some have speculated that the so-called e-mail Engadget sources was planted by a trader who had an inkling that such a story would have a negative impact on Apple's stock. It's also been hypothesized that the trade up to no good probably made quick fortune in shorting the stock.

The idea that this whole debacle was started at the hands of a trader trying to manipulate the market isn't that far out of the realm of possibility. In fact, this incident isn't the first time that a false story has been used to trick traders.

Back in 2000, a networking firm by the name of Emulex fall from a morning high of $113.06 to a paltry $43 by noon. So why the sudden drop? Well, as it turns out, a story was planted on a major wire service that proclaimed "Emulex Announces Revised Earnings; SEC Launches Investigation Into Accounting Practices. Paul Folino Steps Down As CEO."

The story was planted by Mark Jakob, a former employee of a wire service called Internet Wire. Major news outlets picked up the story and passed it off as real. Jakob netted $250,000 from his trickery, which he later had to return after an FBI investigation.

If the Engadget story posted yesterday was in fact a trader manipulating the power of a popular technology blog, you can bet that other mischievous traders are going to try similar tactics on a range of different topics and sites.