Source: Bloomberg

Author: Edward BolingBroke, Craig Torres, Benjamin Bain

As an index of inflation, CPI is a very important first -line data in the United States. The staff is even required to have any expressions on the face when entering the West Wing of the White House.

However, the market transaction increased in a few minutes before the announcement of CPI last week, which caused the outside world to worry about the leakage of data in advance.

In the United States, people who compile, process, and release high -sensitive data such as monthly CPI have a set of strict rules that need to be observed.Government officials said that the process of the CPI was not different from the past, nor had the evidence of data leakage or hacker invasion.

However, there are still some lingering problems, such as whether someone can get November data from the website of the Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Labor at 08:30 am at 08:30 am Eastern time.The Bureau of Statistics refuses to discuss its data release process on the grounds of security.

As the inflation rate has risen to 40 years this year, the CPI has become one of the most watched economic indicators, and it is also a key data point to determine whether the Federal Reserve raises interest rates significantly.

Before the announcement of CPI data on December 13, the US Treasury futures market appeared abnormal large -scale buying.After the report shows that the inflation rate is lower than expected, the bond market has remained rising, and investors buying before 8:30 am make profits.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) refused to comment on the "possible investigation" in a statement.A representative of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) also refused to comment.Both departments have the right to investigate any behavior that may manipulate the US government bond market.

According to the current and former employees of the Statistics Bureau, the Federal Reserve, the Ministry of Finance, and the White House Economic Advisory Committee (CEA), the following is the operation process behind the CPIs summarized by the reporter.

CPI announced a week before the announcement

A small number of staff of the Statistics Bureau will start preparing data reports about a week before the release of the CPI report.After the draft is finished, they will be reviewed by Robert Cage and Jeffrey Hill. They are all the assistance of the assistant director, responsible for the consumer price and price index, and the price and living conditions.

When there are two days before the release date, the data will be sent to the director of the Statistics Bureau, the director of the Statistics Bureau, William Beach.

On the eve of the release of data

According to Karen Ransom, which is responsible for the data released by the Bureau of Statistics, around 2:30 pm or 3 pm the day before the data announcement, the Bureau of Statistics will send the report to CEA through safe electronic transmission.At 4 pm, officials of the Bureau of Labor Statistics will make a briefing on the CEA on the data situation through the Microsoft video conference software Teams.

Then, the CEA will share this information with some key personnel of the White House, the Ministry of Finance, and the Federal Reserve, including the Minister of Finance Jennte Yellen and the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerom Powell.The CEA will also report to Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Commission in the form of memo and President Biden.

The White House spokesman said that only limited CEA staff who can get data in advance and a few of the highest -level government officials.The White House did not hear that there was any leakage in the last CPI release. The United States has strict security measures to ensure that the data will not leak in advance.

DJ Nordquist, who had served as CEA Chief of Staff at the Trump administration, said that CEA staff took the materials from Eisenhower's administrative office building to the White House West Wing.Then put one or two folders on the outside to ensure that no text content can be seen from the outside.

"We are very worried. The reporter knows that this is the data day. On the same day, there were always reporters walking around that area, so we must make sure that there are two or three floors of bread in the file outside, and we must look very serious when walking.With facial expressions ".

The report is sent to the Ministry of Finance and the Federal Reserve through encrypted security transmission and security networks.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Finance said that the data information was transmitted to a security facility and sent to several people with permissions.The Fed refused to disclose any details, but the spokesman Eric Kollig said that the Fed "has strict security measures in dealing with non -disclosure and market sensitive information."

The same is true of the

The Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Labor.GROSHEN, who served as the director from 2013 to 2017, said that before the release of important data, the office area related to the reporting preparation will strictly restrict personnel in and out of personnel.

She said, "During that time, even the trash can cannot be cleaned up."

Data Release Day

Ransom said that on the day of the release of the data, a small part of the staff of the Minister of Labor Minister will convene an online meeting from 8 am.Before the report was officially released, everyone who could know the data in advance was not allowed to leave the meeting and was constrained by a confidential agreement.

Before the outbreak of the crown disease, some reporters could get data in advance on the morning, but were asked to stay in the room where the Ministry of Labor was "locked".This approach has been canceled in 2020 and has not been restored so far, partly because it is to ensure that everyone has equal authority in knowing data.Like other news media, Bloomberg News can only get data when the CPI reports are officially announced.

The Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Labor refused to further explain how the report was published on the Internet, saying that "for security reasons, we do not discuss the details of the release procedure."Last week, the agency stated that there was no suspicious activity, and there was no evidence to prove that "information technology system was damaged by any form."

Officials must also follow strict policies implemented by the White House management and budget office to "prevent information from getting information that affects the financial and commodity markets in advance."