Shortly after an earthquake occurs in the U.S. its Geological Survey reports it a list of "Recent Earthquake Activity" on its homepage. Nonetheless, a strong earthquake in the Californian Gulf occurring 9.32 CET wasn't reported by Bloomberg until over an hour thereafter, 10.36 CET (yes, I have checked the time conversion). When Bloomberg's story hit the screens, currency markets and the European bondmarket (led by the Bund Futures) had already reacted, several minutes ahead (about 10.20 CET), by selling USD and temporarily buying the Bund-contract, its price path during the morning shown in the diagram above, time again given in CET. Lazy Europeans controlling the financial markets at this time of day? Even lazier journalists? I don't know, maybe the quake wasn't what sparked the reaction, but an emailed tsunami advisory, possibly lagging USGS listing of the quake, mentioned in Bloomberg's story. Time to put tsunami warnings on a frequently updated public web-site? In case me and Bloomberg haven't overlooked such a site: yes, I do guess so!
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