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1.Welcome to USDA Super Report Friday! While your waiting, check out this AJAE article I wrote on "USDA Announcement Effects in Real-Time." academic.oup.com/ajae/article/1…
2. Money chart from the AJAE article. Halt-era is USDA release before market opens. Real-time is release while market is open. Prices are more volatile for the first 5-10 min after release in real-time era. 
3. The increased volatility is apparent even when we try to adjust for the changing time of day that the USDA reports hit the market.
4. So, what is going on with real-time release of USDA reports? Why more volatility? My best guess is that we are seeing is what I call "run games on steroids." In electronic markets with real time release, a massive race by HFTs to get the info first.
5. Everyone in the market knows that this race is going on and it essentially destabilizes the market for a few minutes as the issue is settled. Think about it. The risk I face in the first minute or so is that you got to the USDA servers before I did.
6. Should we go back to a trading halt around USDA report releases? I don' know. Would be hard to enforce and design. Extra volatility does not last more than a few minutes. Would it be worth the effort?
7. I think this does raise the issue of "run games" in electronic markets in general. Do we really need to be able to trade at 1 millisecond or 10 nanoseconds? Personally, I think we should seriously look at the idea of mini batch auctions at some millisecond interval.
8. At some point trading closer and closer to the speed of light is socially wasteful and creates some perverse outcomes. How fast do we really need to trade and what guardrails do we need in this very, very different market system. Off my soapbox (for now).
