Traders woke up to a pleasant surprise on Tuesday morning, with equity Futures strongly higher. CNBC anchors were exuberant as previous earnings and credit fears melted away.

The cause? An internet April Fool's hoax that backfired.

Bloomberg  data service ran a full news alert, specifying the details of the longtime Bear's hoax, without recognizing it wasn't real:

The veteran fund manger had assumed that readers would get the April Fool's joke -- but never imagined it would go over the heads of veteran financial writers.