The battle to trade box office futures received a major blow on Friday when the House and Senate put together a final version of the financial reform bill, the Restoring American Financial Stability Act. The bill, which is expected to be signed into law before July 4, included a ban on trading box office futures. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved Cantor Exchange‘s box office receipts contracts yesterday, but according to CNBC, Cantor will not fight legislative efforts to ban movie futures and will instead focus on foreign currency products. The same can’t be said for the other exchange that hopes to launch movie futures, Trend Exchange, as they reportedly will issue a legal challenge to offer movie futures.
Based previous talks with analysts, many in the industry aren’t taking the whole movie futures trading issue seriously anyway. However, one could argue that the movie futures ban could lead to more attempts to ban certain commodities from trading by the government.
Tags: Cantor Exchange, CFTC
