It’s not exactly clear how the information got to Chicago markets so quickly. But the Federal Reserve is concerned enough about the unusual event that it has begun discussions with news organizations. In response to specific questions about the unusual trading activity, the Fed released a statement to CNBC saying, “We will be conducting follow-up conversations with news organizations to ensure our procedures are completely understood.”
And, the Fed said, “As is generally the case with other releases of market-sensitive information by government agencies, news organizations receiving embargoed information from the Federal Reserve agree in writing to make no public use of the information until the time set for its release.” A Federal Reserve spokesman declined to name the organizations it is in discussions with. The spokesman did not respond on the record when asked whether any of the organizations broke the Fed’s rules.
The precise timing of the release is crucial because information can only travel as fast as the speed of light—a physical reality first laid out by Albert Einstein. Information—like a Fed decision—released in Washington takes as much as 7 milliseconds to travel to Chicago, where futures and other assets are traded. And because high-speed trading firms are now able to execute trades at the millisecond level, there is a brief window of time in which information can be publicly available in Washington but is still traveling to Chicago, where computers won’t receive it until milliseconds later.