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I'm not sure if there should be any outrage over this. It was already known that they released the data 5 minutes early to subscribers who wished to pay more.

I'm not sure if there should be any outrage over this. It was already known that they released the data 5 minutes early to subscribers who wished to pay more. It's not really a stretch to think they'd offer tiers for people who wished to pay more. The data is, after all, legally theirs to release, and Michigan University knew and approved it. If this is something people don't like then they can vote with their feet and move to a different news source. Once again Nanex is all over this.

jsingleton 13y ago
Yes, unsurprising considering how much traders pay to get their servers co-located in exchanges' data centres. This is orders of magnitude more time. But should they have been more open about it?
downandout 13y ago
There is nothing inherently wrong with choosing to release reports that you own or have exclusive license to in any way you want, tiered or not. I pay for Showtime, and therefore I get to see new Homeland episodes before people downloading from free torrent sites get to. I have chosen to pay; they have chosen not to pay. Same thing here. A significant chunk of the money Reuters pays for the reports, which they recoup through subscriptions, winds up going to pay for the production of the reports anyway. The only thing that surprises me about this is how much money they are likely leaving on the table. They should let people bid for early access.
adrr 13y ago
What if companies did this with earnings reports? Released it early to people willing to pay.
- kasey_junk 13y ago
  If they were publicly traded companies that would be against the law.
  - brown9-2 13y ago
    With the idea being that those who bought access had an unfair advantage in trading with the general public. However, if "everyone" knows that some companies can buy these reports minutes ahead of time, then when people lose out on trades in the minutes afterwards, isn't it the fault of the people taking the trade? It's not wise to trade with people who might have more knowledge than you. It seems like there's a reasonable expectation that the people on the other sides of these trades should know about the paid access.
    - kasey_junk 13y ago
      There is nothing illegal, immoral, or unethical about collecting information or paying someone to collect information to give you an advantage in a trade. Nearly every trade that happens has some information assymetry associated with it. It is not a secret in any way that there are tiers of access to reuters data. We could enact some sort of law that makes this illegal, but that seems heavy handed and unlikely to have a positive impact on the market. We have decided that it should be illegal for public companies to give information selectively for the purposes of trading. We could easily change this law, but history has shown us that it isn't heavy handed and does have a positive impact on the market.

jsingleton 13y ago

Yes, unsurprising considering how much traders pay to get their servers co-located in exchanges' data centres. This is orders of magnitude more time. But should they have been more open about it?

downandout 13y ago

There is nothing inherently wrong with choosing to release reports that you own or have exclusive license to in any way you want, tiered or not. I pay for Showtime, and therefore I get to see new Homeland episodes before people downloading from free torrent sites get to. I have chosen to pay; they have chosen not to pay. Same thing here. A significant chunk of the money Reuters pays for the reports, which they recoup through subscriptions, winds up going to pay for the production of the reports anyway. The only thing that surprises me about this is how much money they are likely leaving on the table. They should let people bid for early access.

adrr 13y ago

What if companies did this with earnings reports? Released it early to people willing to pay.

kasey_junk 13y ago
If they were publicly traded companies that would be against the law.
- brown9-2 13y ago
  With the idea being that those who bought access had an unfair advantage in trading with the general public. However, if "everyone" knows that some companies can buy these reports minutes ahead of time, then when people lose out on trades in the minutes afterwards, isn't it the fault of the people taking the trade? It's not wise to trade with people who might have more knowledge than you. It seems like there's a reasonable expectation that the people on the other sides of these trades should know about the paid access.
  - kasey_junk 13y ago
    There is nothing illegal, immoral, or unethical about collecting information or paying someone to collect information to give you an advantage in a trade. Nearly every trade that happens has some information assymetry associated with it. It is not a secret in any way that there are tiers of access to reuters data. We could enact some sort of law that makes this illegal, but that seems heavy handed and unlikely to have a positive impact on the market. We have decided that it should be illegal for public companies to give information selectively for the purposes of trading. We could easily change this law, but history has shown us that it isn't heavy handed and does have a positive impact on the market.