This is from today's Washington Post. (www.washingtonpost.com). Perhaps it can add to the conspiracy theory. Extract --- What's in a Verb? A Great Deal at BLS Staff Works in Secrecy Preparing Jobs Reports By David FinkelWashington Post Staff WriterFriday, April 2, 2004; Page A23 There is the matter of the man with the watch. The watch is set to Naval Observatory time, and by 8:29, the man will be watching it tick, tick, tick until he rises from his chair and shouts loud enough to be heard in every cubicle, "It is 8:30." And finally, there is the matter of the verb. By 8:30:01, the world will learn whether the winner of five days of intense discussions behind the locked doors of the U.S. Division of Labor Force Statistics is "declined," "rose," "edged," "nudged" or "remained the same." All of this becomes clear today because this is the first Friday of the month that follows the first Thursday of the month, which means the latest national employment figures are being released by the Labor Department. Precisely at 8:30 a.m., America will learn how many jobs and unemployed workers it had in March....[snip] [On Thursday] Final revisions were made about whether to highlight mitigating factors such as strikes and oddball weather, Web site tables were prepared and a preview of the report was sent to Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, the only people outside a select few at the Bureau of Labor Statistics authorized to see the figures before their release. The CEA, in turn, prepared a summary that typically is given late Thursday to Bush, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Treasury Secretary John W. Snow. As for today, the report itself becomes available at 8 a.m. to Greenspan, Snow, Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao, Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans and certain news reporters who are sequestered until 8:30 in a locked room monitored by Labor Department employees to make sure no advance word of the report leaks out. End
Would those be the Labor Department employees who don't know a blackberry from a hole in the wall or the one in a hundred who does?
Reuters has f/u in the past, they should lose "prime access" to all govie reports, total bs... If I can synch. my watch to the atomic clock, so can reuters, the fools. I thank 'em though, got me short the damn notes. riskarb
That is FUNNY!!! So much for the facade of the I-Bank traders. I guess that's how they beat their estimates with "great bond trading performance". Apparently they are desperate to meet their future numbers if they are willing to risk making it that obvious. Let's see how much the SEC is in their pockets. I would not be surprised if nothing is ever mentioned although I would love to see this blow up.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4740000 WASHINGTON, April 2 (Reuters) - The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is looking into market activity around the time of the release of Friday's U.S. March jobs data and is talking to other federal regulators, a spokesman said. "I think it's accurate to say we are looking into it and talking to other parties that would have an interest in making sure that something didn't happen that was inappropriate," Alan Sobba, the CFTC's director of external affairs, told Reuters. Sobba said the CFTC was gathering facts and talking to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department but gave no further details. The move came after the Labor Department said it had launched an internal review after speculation that violent swings in financial markets were caused by early release of vital employment data. The Labor Department stressed it did not believe a leak had occurred. Some analysts are convinced the surprisingly robust March payrolls report was leaked before its official 8:30 a.m. (1330 GMT) embargo, causing wild spikes in financial flows about two minutes before the official release time.
The clock excuse is a lie. Let's keep the context: We're talking about the most waited for economic report this week (the one that has kept trading in a narrow range for days) AND we're supposed to believe an institution like Reuters didn't have its computer clocked sync'd? Retuers?? Today??? But no one need take anyone else's "word" for any explanation. Simply look at the charts. On the ES today, it had traded since settlement last night in a narrow band around 1133.50. SIX MINUTES prior to 8:30 AM ET volume started to get heavy and prices popped in the direction of the (soon to be) spike up. It broke out of the range in the correct direction well before the public release of the report. Well before it. The price action itself doesn't lie. Significant size knew ahead of time what side of the market to be on up to 6 minutes ahead. And even the investigative stooges at CNBC blather on claiming not to be able to determine if anything was leaked. Why in the hell would size not take a position all week, including all night, then 6 minutes before the report suddenly get on what turns out to be the winning side? Why would anyone suddenly think that 50:50 risk/reward was suddenly worth the commit 6 minutes before? Answer: Because they knew it wasn't a 50:50 anymore.
Time to load up on Reuters puts? If they were in league with the crooks, they could get well and truly Spitzered. Also, whoever did this was IMO incredibly stupid to make it so obvious. That Dynergy exec got over 20 years without parole recently, for a bog standard corporate fraud - that's more than some axe murderers or gang rapists. If these guys get caught - and there is an indelible paper trail - then they could be looking at a decade or more inside. Right now is just about the worst possible climate to play fast and loose with the regulators. This is especially strange, since that Goldman guy who leaked the Treasury's decision to cease 30 year bond sales got jailed recently. Don't these guys read the news?
In recent months there's been suspicious action on several occasions. These assholes must think they are untouchable.
They might be. That's quite a blatant move that is obvious to too many traders. Activity like this would normally be detected within the hour, yet nothing serious has been stated. I would think that reporters would be jumping all over this with the worst possible news scenarios. But they are not. It's enough to make some look away from US markets. Many other reasons for that, but such blatant abuses really undermine true trading skills.
Surely it is worth someone's while (e.g. an institution not "in" on the fraudulent trading) to pay a private investigator to track this down? Either that, or call the feds. If I were a big fund on the wrong side of these moves, I would be making a donation to my friendly FBI officer's favourite charity, and asking him to get some wiretapping sorted out.