Posts Tagged ‘CFTC’
Thursday, July 21st, 2011
Today is the one-year anniversary of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Funny as it only seemed like yesterday that we were trying to understand the various components of the massive legislation as Congress debated it.
There hasn’t been a piece of legislation so debated, maligned and blamed for negative consequences prior to most of the underlying elements of it going into affect since, well since the Obama Heath Care reform, the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or PPACA.
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Tags: bailout, CFTC, Financial Regulatory Reform
Posted in Credit crisis, Federal Reserve, Regulatory/actions, economy | No Comments »
Friday, June 24th, 2011
It’s not easy being a regulator these days, especially in the foamy wake of the Dodd-Frank Act’s tsunami crashing ashore at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (we island dwellers are authorized to use maritime analogies). Congress (remember them?) told the CFTC to create scores of new rules by July 16 (two days after the hang-over from Bastille Day, by the way). That is exactly 360 days after the 200+ page tome was enacted (I will leave it to numerologists to explain that). (more…)
Tags: CFTC, Congress, dodd-frank, regulation
Posted in Regulatory/actions | No Comments »
Thursday, June 23rd, 2011
It was nearly two years ago when ELX Futures L.P. proudly announced that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) had approved their exchange of futures for futures (EFF) rule.
It was a considerable victory for the upstart exchange because it would make it easier for end users to transfer their open interest to its clearinghouse from the CME Group clearinghouse or vice versa. (more…)
Tags: CFTC, CME Group, EFFs, ELX Futures, futures exchanges
Posted in Markets, Regulatory/actions | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 25th, 2011
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a civil enforcement action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against three energy trading firms and two individuals charging them with unlawfully manipulating and attempting to manipulate WTI crude oil prices traded at the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) from January 2008 to April 2008.
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Tags: CFTC, regulation, speculators
Posted in Manipulation, Spec limits, Speculators | 2 Comments »
Friday, May 13th, 2011
When silver dropped precipitously off of its near $50 high at the beginning of the month some people saw it as the bursting of a bubble. Other more constrained analysts saw it as a long overdue correction and or reaction to a reversal in the dollar and would wait for more information before giving the move more significance.
Yet there were others who saw the sharp rise in margin requirements by the CME Group as proof of a conspiracy. Margins did go up sharply but so had price and volatility making silver more risky and thus requiring more money to back positions.
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Tags: CFTC, Congress, speculators
Posted in Markets, Spec limits, Speculators | 1 Comment »
Friday, May 6th, 2011
A lot already has been written about today being the one year anniversary of the “Flash crash.” Most of the articles out there are throwing out a couple numbers and giving a perspective of whether changes made since then are having any sort of effect to prevent another “incident.” That’s fine, but sometimes it’s important to just go back and remember why this was a big deal. (more…)
Tags: CFTC, Financial Regulatory Reform, Flash crash, May 6, May 6 Flash crash, SEC, Stock market
Posted in Markets, Regulatory/actions | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, May 4th, 2011
There has been a debate raging for more than three years as to the role of speculators in the ongoing bull market in commodities. It hit a head in 2008 when crude oil spiked to $147, subsided during the credit crisis and is back with us in force.
Henry Jarecki, chairman of Gresham Investment Management, a long-time figure in both cash and futures metals markets and the subject of our May cover story gave a lecture in April at Georgetown University titled, “The Relationship Between Commodity Futures Trading and PhysicalCommodity Prices.” (more…)
Tags: CFTC, Congress, Gary Gensler, speculators
Posted in Regulatory/actions, Speculators | 2 Comments »
Monday, April 25th, 2011
First, let’s be thankful it exists (the human spirit thing that is). Many of our greatest inventions and cures arose from a refusal to say “no.”
So why be worried when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) whacks a natural gas trader for $30 million based on a finding that he manipulated the price of natural gas futures (an activity assigned by Congress 40 years ago for policing EXCLUSIVELY by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission) on the New York Mercantile Exchange (also supervised EXCLUSIVELY by the CFTC)? (more…)
Tags: CFTC, FERC, regulation
Posted in Regulatory/actions | No Comments »
Saturday, April 23rd, 2011
Dan Roth, president and CEO of the National Futures Association, talked about regulation and the NFA’s approach to it at the second annual New York CTA Expo. Roth stressed the self in self regulation and said that lack of affective self-regulation leads to bad policy and bad legislation.
This brought up the subject of excessive speculation, which Roth defined as, “changes in the price of commodities that cause pain to voters.”
He acknowledged that this was the political definition and noted the need to educate politicians and regulators, as there is presently excessive specualtion under that political definition. We prompted Roth by pointing out a letter sent to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) by 12 senators last month asking it to raise margins for crude oil speculators.
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Tags: CFTC, speculators
Posted in Speculators | No Comments »
I was in Washington D.C. the night President Obama announced the finding and killing of Osama bin Laden. I got the news alert just as I was going to bed and must admit, I was elated. As I was staying about two blocks from the White House, a couple hours later I was awakened by the collective partying in the streets.