New Data Suggest U.K. Government Figures Are Getting Released Early
‘The more prerelease access you have, the more likely it is that these things are going to be leaked,’ says the executive director of the Royal Statistical Society
U.K. government-bond futures often move sharply in the 24 hours before sensitive economic reports are released, an analysis of trading data shows, a phenomenon that suggests some investors may be trading with knowledge of official statistics before they are made public.
.. Over a hundred people, from Prime Minister Theresa May to dozens of policy advisers and press officers, can get to see some of the figures a day before they come out.
.. Some officials believe, for instance, that there was a persistent leak of British gross domestic product data in 2009 and 2010
.. This episode ended immediately after the May 2010 general election, when many of the individuals with prerelease access changed.
.. Officials say the wide and early briefing is so lawmakers can prepare how to present the data to the media and public.
.. In the 60 minutes before data was published, bond-futures prices moved, on average, by 0.029%—in the direction they would end up going after publication. That is more than a third of total movement in the two hours surrounding the release.
.. So a gain of 0.029% would add about £68 million in value.
.. In five of the seven cases where strong evidence of “price drift” was found in the U.S. by Prof. Kurov and his co-authors, the data were released by private organizations where security arrangements aren’t required to be as strict
.. Strong evidence of prices moving in the direction they would end up going after publication, or drift, was found in only two of 14 data releases published by U.S. government agencies, according to Prof. Kurov’s analysis.