Germany Industrial Production - Data Leak leads to sell off before the release

Today on Thursday April 5th 2012, the Industrial Production figures for Germany were released. The data came out at 11:00 GMT (6:00 EST). This blog entry is included as it shows what is sometimes refered to as "Buy the rumor, sell the news", but often it can be "Sell the leak, buy the news"....and either it shows how good the research departments at the major banks are, or that indeed the information is getting leaked from the Department of Statistics from some underpaid secretary or janitor. Also it does show that the estimates provided to Bloomberg which are used to compose the 'Median Estimate' can also be skewed to provide the wrong forward projection for the release, when elsewhere it is known to be different. Whatever it is, we have no proof other than the proof of the price chart.

Here is the data:

Germany Industrial Production MoM (sa)
Estimates- Median: -0.5% Average: -0.4% Low: -1.9% High: +1.3%
Actual: -1.3% Prior: +1.6% Revised: +1.2%

Germany Industrial Production YoY (nsa wda)
Estimates- Median: +0.5% Average: +0.5% Low: -1.8% High: +2.3%
Actual: -1.0% Prior: +1.8% Revised: +1.5%

As we can see it was much lower. Now from the start of the European session it was very natural to sell EURUSD from its Central pivot point at 1.3160...it soon moved down to the big round number of 1.3100, and quite naturally took out stops there and moved down further into the 1.3080-95 region. However then the further extension from there down to 1.3060 in the 15 minutes leading into the release of the German data was highly suspect and points to early release amoungst an elite few. The data came out and there was no further price reaction, indeed the EURUSD had sold off all it could by that time, and a period of slow profit taking commenced which moved the pair back into the 1.3080 zone.

Here is the chart, the red mark is where the data was released: