The up roaring event of data leakages of National Security Agency (NSA) by Edward Snowden, ex-employer, had threatened the security concerns and brought out the fact that the US had been continuously hacking Chinese mobile operator networks and Hong Kong’s fiber optics cable operator . The issue had impact on the US-China relationship. Similar other cases are found on the real world. Over a two-and-a-half year period between February 2008 and December 2010, the two CME NYMEX employees who worked on the Clear Port electronic system, routinely disclosed detailed transaction reporting data on customer trades to a third party broker. On June, 2013 the ISM manufacturing data was sent early by Thomson Reuters to a select group of high-frequency traders before it was available to the wider market.

The Federal Reserve unexpectedly refrained from cutting back its asset-buying program. Gold prices hit one-week high on Thursday after the Fed’s press release and the gold futures rose by 4.5% compared to Tuesday’s closing price. The bullion gained 4.2 percent on Wednesday, 18th September. The Dollar index hit 81.38 before the Fed announcement and depreciated to a seven-month low against a currency basket.

Gold futures prices had rallied down by 22 per cent in the current year before the Fed’s announcement. Gold prices began climbing about three minutes before the Fed’s press release. The Fed’s press release was released at 2pm EDT. Within one minute of trading at 1.57pm, gold had gained about $US8.70 and 1,748 futures contracts exchanged hands. The rise in gold prices prior to the press release- was it the lucky guess or was it the information leaked?

The research made by Nanex shows that the data had been released before 2 p.m. as the traders showed their intentions towards gold prices prior about 3 minutes ago in both the cities- New York and Chicago. The interesting fact - the press release was made in Washington D.C. and the traders in New York and Chicago started trading prior to the Fed’s press release. Washington D.C. is nearer to New York compared to Chicago and takes around 7 milliseconds to transfer information from Washington to Chicago. Also, it takes around 2 milliseconds to reach the data from Washington to New York.

It has been difficult to find the fact-Did the Fed itself preannounce its decision to certain trading houses or the large news agencies which are provided news prior to the release for writing news for their news houses informed in short to their related trader? What were the facts behind the earlier trading in the Chicago and New York based exchanges are yet to be found.