Ahead on financial regulation

A quintet of top U.S. financial officials took to Capitol Hill on July 24 to offer Congress their varying views on how lawmakers should proceed in rewriting the rules for U.S. financial regulation. Few debates are of more importance to Reuters clients. Reuters obtained from top sources advance copies of the testimony of the officials, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair. Dow rolled out snaps on Bernankes testimony 44 seconds after Reuters had filed, and were 17 seconds behind on alerts from Geithners testimony. Bloomberg ran alerts on Geithner 11-1/2 minutes after Reuters. The beat showed clients that Reuters is the place to watch to get the news first.