$28 million traded on Thomson Reuters' early data release

Stocks worth $28 million changed hands when US manufacturing data compiled by the Institute for Supply Management was sent out to high-frequency trading networks 15 milliseconds before 10:00 am ET on Monday. That was long enough for computer trading algorithms programmed to process the data within a split second to act on it automatically, giving them a market advantage.

Trading in futures for the S&P 500 exploded before the release was supposed to have hit the tape – at 09:59:59.985. The release should have gone out at 10:00:00 on the dot.

Two days later Thomson Reuters admitted it had inadvertently released the data to a select group of high frequency traders  before it was available to the wider market.

“We have identified that there was a minor clock synchronization issue Monday causing this data to be released 15 milliseconds early,” it said in a statement to US business television channel CNBC. “We are taking measures to minimize clock synchronization issues in order to ensure that release of the data is as close as possible to the official release time of 10am ET.”

Thomson Reuters said the data was just one of more than 1,300 economic indicators available on its high speed news feed direct service.

CNBC said a source familiar with the situation characterised the incident as a “minor, isolated, clock synchronization issue,” and said Thomson Reuters is “taking measures to make sure that synchronization is completely up to speed in the future.” ■