US Taxpayers Pay For SEC To Arrange Early Release Of Data To HFTs

The SEC reportedly does not like trading on information that is not yet public. Just ask SAC Capital, or if you prefer, watch the plethora of insider trading SEC news conferences in general.

Why, even this morning there is a WSJ story about theSEC’s investigation into the early leak and release of Medicare cancer related funding data, which is an investigation into a different government agency!

And remember last year, when the SEC began investigatingThompson Reuter’s early release of ISM data to certain high speed subscribers. While the SEC brought no charges against Thompson Reuters, the data firm did subsequently suspend its “tiered release” practice:

On Monday, Thomson Reuters announced that it was suspending a so-called “tiered release” of market moving data to elite clients. The data and news service had been selling the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment numbers to paying clients at 9:54:58 on release days—two seconds before the information went to a broader set of clients at 9:55 am. That created an opportunity for high speed trading firms to rake in profits before the rest of the market knew which direction the impending news would propel trading.

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