A fake e-mail posted on Engadget has casued a plunge in Apple’s stock. Ryan Block, the managing editor of Engadget, on Monday posted on Engadget a story claiming that according to an e-mail received from a trustworthy source, Apple will delay its iPhone until October 2007 and Mac OS X Leopard until January 2008.

"The latest WWDC Leopard beta will still be handed out, but it looks like Apple-quality takes time, and we're sure Jobs would remind everyone that it's not always about 'writing a check', but just how much time are these two products really going to take?" Block wrote.

Within minutes, Apple’s stock plunged 2.2 percent. One month ago Apple officially announced the delay of its Mac OS X Leopard because of iPhone.

"This one doesn't bode well for Mac fans and the iPhone-hopeful: we have it on authority that as of today, the iPhone launch is being pushed back from June to... October (!), and Leopard is again seeing a delay, this time being pushed all the way back to January," Engadget said.

In one hour after the original post, Engadget revealed that the whole story was just a hoax, although the original e-mail was sent from Apple’s internal e-mail system.

Also Apple reacted quickly to squash the rumor and issued a press statement saying that both products will be launched on time. Still, it seems like in the meantime billions of dollars were made or lost.