USDA rule sets up race for data

Crop report now to go only to Web

It's the sort of edge any trader would covet -- and one the authorities were actually hoping to prevent.

Yet the U.S. Department of Agriculture may well be clearing the way for some Wall Street speed demons to trade on market-moving data before others. Abandoning decades of precedent, the agency has decided to post its reports directly only on the Web, rather than also release them through accredited media outlets. While that may seem like a democratic move, it actually could set the stage for a winner-takes-all arms race to grab the info first.

The development, announced Tuesday, is the latest saga for crop markets that have increasingly seen high-speed algorithms taking over and running circles around slower human counterparts. Fiber-optic cables, short wave radio, microwave towers: all have been employed to trade faster.

"Somebody will figure out the fastest way to get the information and trade on it first," said Jim Angel, a finance professor at Georgetown University in Washington. "What it does is it changes the arms race in a different direction."

Press organizations use high-speed fiber optic lines to get data to readers out of the so-called lockup, where journalists are given access to the data up to 90 minutes in advance. It takes the department roughly 2 seconds longer to transmit its reports to the public, according to the USDA. The agency cited this gap when announcing its policy change.

"Everyone who has interest in the USDA reports should have the same access as anyone else," Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said in a statement Tuesday.

The changes come during a volatile period for agricultural trading. Soybean and hog futures have plunged in recent weeks as China imposed new tariffs against U.S. farm products. Grain prices have also slumped amid ample supplies. CME Group Inc. said trading volume across agricultural futures and options set an all-time high of 3.2 million contracts on June 19.

The USDA's monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report is one of the most-followed events in the grain-trading world. The August report will be the first affected by the policy shift. It's typically closely watched as it provides the agency's first survey-based production forecasts for corn and soybeans, the top U.S. crops valued at close to $90 billion.

The irony is that the USDA's attempt to ensure everyone gets potentially market-moving information on commodities at the same time could actually do the opposite.

The USDA didn't immediately respond to request for comment on how its policy change could create disparities in data access. The agency did say Tuesday that it would improve its website to handle an anticipated spike in traffic in the moments after report releases.

Rather than getting access to data early, members of the media, including Bloomberg News will now get the data only through the USDA website at the same time as the public. The lockup process is used by a variety of government agencies and allows for dissemination that reaches many data-trackers at once.

The USDA's data-transmission technology that websites use works like a queue. In this case, that means the trading firm with the bot that first scrapes the USDA site will have an advantage over everyone else, a head start on placing trades in commodities markets.

The change takes place Aug. 1. That may make post-release moments more volatile while benefiting businesses with the resources to scan-and-trade fastest.

"If the dissemination isn't handled evenly, it can create the perception that the government isn't playing fair or it's beholden to certain vested interests or something nefarious going on," said Larry Tabb, founder of market research firm Tabb Group LLC.

To be sure, there's nothing illegal about getting publicly available data first and trading on it. And traders have always sought to get an edge. But in this modern era, an edge can consist of getting important data in just a tiny sliver of a second faster than anyone else -- even 1 millionth of a second.

Grain trading volumes often surge after USDA releases key reports. While some firms use methods like satellite imagery to get a better sense of supply, the government data remain the benchmark in domestic and global production forecasts.

USDA officials have said they notified the Labor and Census departments of the policy decision. Those agencies use different technology to publish their reports and didn't indicate they plan to cancel lockups, the USDA's chief economist, Robert Johansson, and Seth Meyer, the agricultural-outlook chief, told reporters Tuesday.

Business on 07/12/2018

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