Marketwired settles allegations over direct data feeds to high-frequency traders

NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) - New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced an agreement on Wednesday with a news distribution and reporting firm to end the sales of direct news feeds to high-frequency traders.

Marketwired, a Toronto-based company with offices in the U.S., allegedly sold direct feeds of information the company distributed to high-frequency traders. By subscribing to the direct data feeds, some trading firms were allegedly able to trade on the information ahead of other investors. Schneiderman said eliminating the advantage helps to restore fairness to the markets.

"My office is committed to ensuring a fair, stable, and transparent market," Schneiderman said. "High-frequency traders who drain the value out of market-moving information in the milliseconds before it becomes widely available to other investors erode confidence in our markets and skim from the rest of the investing public, which hurts the entire market. This is another important step forward in bringing an end to Insider Trading 2.0. I applaud Marketwired for doing the right thing and strongly encourage other industry participants to follow their lead."

The agreement is part of Schneiderman's effort to crack down on entities that exploit technology to get an unfair and potentially illegal advantage in the marketplace.

The agreement with Marketwired follows a February agreement with Business Wire, a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary, to stop providing market moving data to high-frequency traders. Schneiderman's office also secured interim agreement in February with 18 other financial firms to discontinue or continue refraining from responding to surveys that potentially allowed investors to front-run future analyst revisions.