The US government is so incompetent! Core data releases are chaotic, and Wall Street is very angry

An overnight blooper by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in the United States has sparked outrage on Wall Street.

As the global market awaited the annual revision of US non-farm data, BLS not only delayed the release of the data by half an hour, but also leaked the data to at least three investment banks during this time, leaving millions of others in the dark, leading to intense volatility in the financial markets and trading chaos.

"I'm not surprised that people feel uneasy," said Nancy Tengler, CEO of Laffer Tengler Investments, "The whole thing reeks of incompetence."

Troy Ludtka, Senior US Economic Analyst at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation Americas, expressed some frustration, stating, "It's a bit infuriating," as he was one of those waiting for the report to be publicly released.

To put it mildly: government agencies absolutely cannot selectively disclose market-moving information to some agents and brokers over the phone while leaving others in the dark. This goes against the principle of a balanced market built on fairness and accessible information.

Background

According to the plan, the preliminary US non-farm employment data was supposed to be released at 10 a.m. Eastern Time.

Prior to the official announcement by BLS, rumors spread on social media early on that the employment figure had been revised downward by 818,000. Financial website Forexlive cited reports claiming that someone personally called the Bureau of Labor Statistics and they told him this number over the phone.

However, by 10:01 a.m., the BLS revision announcement page was still blank, leading millions of traders, thousands of economists, and countless investors to frantically refresh the page, only to be met with emptiness. At this point, the market's reaction seemed as though the data had already been released, but in reality, it was just algorithms or traders making trading decisions based on expectations or speculation.

As time ticked by, it wasn't until after 10:30 a.m. that BLS finally released the revised non-farm data.

This delayed data, released half an hour later, showed a significant downward revision of 818,000 non-farm jobs over the past year, marking the largest decrease in fifteen years, consistent with the previously circulated online data.

Initially, US stocks rose due to expectations of a rate cut, but then quickly turned lower due to concerns about labor market decline. Subsequently, after the minutes of the July Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a likely rate cut in September, rate-cut trades took the lead, causing US stocks to rise and the gains to expand.

In the end, all three major US stock indices closed higher, with small-cap and chip stocks rising by over 1%. US bond yields continued to decline, with the two-year yield dropping by nearly 11 basis points.

**![](https://wpimg-wscn.awtmt.com/9697e86b-7b55-48dc-9e01-b79f6c729051.png? During this long half-hour, according to Bloomberg, at least three banks - Mizuho, BNP Paribas, and Nomura - obtained crucial revised data over the phone while other Wall Street professionals were still anxiously waiting.

Yelena Shulyatyeva, a senior US analyst at BNP Paribas, mentioned that she kept refreshing the webpage, waiting for the data, and then, "We made several public phone calls, and they provided us with the data."

Steven Ricchiuto, the chief US analyst at Mizuho, did the same thing. He said:

Knowing that there was a delay in the data, we had to call and inquire, and then the data appeared on their website.

These analysts from the investment banks got the answers over the phone, while other investors were left in the dark. The anger and dissatisfaction caused by the leak of unequal information quickly spread across Wall Street.

Afterwards, BLS stated in a post on X that they were "investigating the reasons for the delay".

A spokesperson for BLS said:

The integrity of data release is the top priority of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and we are closely reviewing our procedures to ensure that such events do not recur.

In just half a year, there have been three data leak scandals

It is worth noting that this is not the first time BLS has leaked economically significant data to the market. Just in the first half of this year, it happened twice:

In April, an economist at BLS provided detailed answers to major inflation-related data questions from Wall Street giants such as JP Morgan and BlackRock, raising questions about the fairness of accessing economic information.

In May, BLS negligently released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data 30 minutes early.

Lastly, let's briefly explain the ways in which official economic data is released in the United States.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, US economic data reports were strictly controlled and mainly released to accredited news agencies, which then disseminated the information to the public.

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the US government changed this practice, with departments starting to simultaneously release data to everyone on the internet, rather than just to accredited news agencies. Authorities believe that by releasing data to everyone simultaneously via the internet, they can better protect the security of information and ensure the fairness of financial markets