A new ECB white paper has found evidence that many major market-moving data releases in the US are leaked in advance of their official publication, allowing some investors to profit from trading stocks and Treasury securities when those data are released. Included among the data releases studied are two from the Federal Reserve Board, on industrial production and consumer credit. The researchers analyzed price movements in the S&P 500 futures market and the 10-year Treasury Note futures market in the thirty minutes prior to these data releases, assuming that strong price movements in the direction of the eventual post-release price were indicative of some sort of leak. The industrial production release was one of seven releases that was strongly suspected of being leaked. This isn’t good news for the Fed.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-wells-fargo-energy-idUSKCN0XV2CD

Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) racked up a 62 percent increase in potentially problematic loans, mainly to oil and gas companies, according to its first-quarter regulatory financial filing released on Wednesday. Loans regulators define as "criticized" rose to nearly $30 billion as of March 31 from about $18.5 billion at the end of 2015, the filing said. The remaining $290.5 billion of Wells Fargo's commercial and industrial loan portfolio was classified as "pass."