April 02, 2004
Financial markets move before jobs data release
The U.S. Labor Department said on Friday it had no evidence the March paryolls data was leaked ahead of its official release time, as some financial market participants have speculated.Posted by Norwood at April 2, 2004 11:14 AM"We have no evidence of a leak," Labor Department spokesman Gary Steinberg told Reuters.
Ralph Axel, senior vice president and fixed-income strategist at HSBC Securities in New York, said the market started moving around 8:28 a.m. (1328 GMT) -- about two minutes before the surprising gain in March payrolls was officially released by the Labor Department.
"(Treasury Secretary) Snow came out early on and said this is going to be a big number. There seems to have been a leak," Axel said.
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