Reuters ends early access to consumer data

This final note today, in which the market, broadly speaking, gets just the teensiest bit more fair.

Thomson Reuters, the financial information conglomerate, has agreed to stop letting its paying clients get an early look at consumer sentiment numbers from the University of Michigan. Reuters pays Michigan for exclusive distribution rights to that data, and in turn had been letting its highest-paying customers have the data early: two seconds before its regular paying clients.

Yes, just two seconds. But in the world of high-frequency trading, that’s practically eons.

But no more. As of Friday, all Reuters clients — not just the high-rollers — get the data at the same time: five minutes before the public.

Like I said, the markets got a teensy bit more fair.