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A former Manhattan-based federal prosecutor was appointed Monday as the new director of enforcement for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
David Meister, who is an attorney at Skadden Arps, will replace Acting Enforcement Director Vincent McGonagle. Before joining Skadden, Meisteer was an assistant U.S. attorney in New York’s Southern District, where he was on the office’s Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force. Get the full story »
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Tuesday approved a proposal to establish a process for deciding which swaps or class of swaps should be submitted to clearinghouses.
The proposal, approved 5-0, will be published for comment. A second vote is needed to implement it. Get the full story »
The top U.S. securities regulator Wednesday took its first stab at policing the $615 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market with a plan to mitigate conflicts of interests at venues that will handle the swaps.
The Securities and Exchange Commission voted 5-0 to propose ownership limits on the swaps trading venues and clearinghouses, which will assume the risk if one party defaults. Get the full story »
Bloomberg News | A mutual fund’s routine effort to hedge against losses helped set off a chain of events that turned an orderly selloff on May 6 into a crash that erased $862 billion in U.S. equity value in less than 20 minutes, according to two people with direct knowledge of regulators’ findings. Get the full story »
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission proposed new limits on Friday on the control banks and other large firms can exert over venues where over-the-counter swaps will soon have to trade and clear.
The futures regulator, rolling out some of the sweeping Wall Street reforms authorized by Congress, is trying to strike a tricky balance between opening up the opaque $615 trillion OTC swaps market without exposing clearinghouses, exchanges and swap execution facilities to undue risk. Get the full story »
As the Securities and Exchange Commission finalizes its report on the May 6 “flash crash,” it is being forced to confront the fallout of its own decisions — which Wall Street sought and cheered — that ushered in an era of fast trading dispersed across dozens of venues.
As recently as this spring, many were applauding the speed, lower costs and competitive nature of the U.S. stock market that largely grew out of a series of policy and technology changes over a decade. “Who could argue that competition was a bad thing . . . and that faster trades would be a bad thing?” asks Joseph Saluzzi, co-head of trading at broker Themis Trading.
But the flash crash, he says, shows there have been “huge, unintended consequences.” Get the full story »
A surge in quote traffic immediately followed by heavy sales of key securities may have sparked the “flash crash” on U.S. stock markets on May 6, a firm that has provided key insights into that day’s events said on Monday.
The sale of $125 million worth of Chicago Mercantile Exchange S&P500 stock index e-mini futures contracts at 2:42 p.m. on May 6, followed 25 microseconds later by the sale of more than $100 million worth of popular exchange-traded funds (ETFs) appears to have triggered the sell-off, datafeed vendor Nanex LLC said. Get the full story »
The head of the U.S. futures regulator said Tuesday that mandatory real-time reporting of swaps trades, a key measure to promote market transparency, could begin as early as September 2011.
Gary Gensler, Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, has been reluctant to provide details or a timetable for new rules to oversee the swaps markets until recently, but his latest remarks offered some early insight on the agency’s direction. Get the full story »
CME Group Inc. told the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that CME’s ban on a type of trade that would help rival ELX Futures LP easily capture business from CME is not anti-competitive.
In a 70-page letter posted on the regulator’s website on Friday, CME asked the CFTC to reconsider its endorsement of so-called exchange for futures trades, or EFFs, repeating its view that there is no compelling reason for it to allow them. Get the full story »
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Monday it has settled fraud and unauthorized trading charges against a Naperville floor trader at the Chicago Board of Trade whose activities generated a $4 million loss.
The CFTC order permanently bans John Lee Neuman from trading. He had registered with the CFTC as a floor broker from May 1993 until February 2008, and became a local in the CBOT corn options pit in September 1997. Get the full story »
The Securities and Exchange Commission has introduced e-mail alerts that will allow the public to be notified when new feedback is posted on its Web site about rulemaking for the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill.
It has had e-mail alerts for a year on other matters and has since sent 11 million updates to nearly 14,000 subscribers. Get the full story »
CME Group Inc’s profitable over-the-counter clearing operations may be headed for an overhaul.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is putting pressure on the giant exchange operator to change the way its ClearPort unit handles OTC swaps, two people familiar with recent discussions said.
CME treats many of the OTC swaps — which are bilaterally matched away from the exchange — like its exchange-traded futures, a popular feature that has allowed investors to cross-margin, and thus save money on, the two products for years. The treatment requires CFTC approval. Get the full story »
CME Group Inc CEO Craig Donohue told employees he is “pleased” with many of the provisions in Washington’s financial reform bill, but raised concerns about the leeway it gives regulators.
The U.S. exchange and clearinghouse operator strongly supported a late addition to the bill that “prohibits mandated linkages for clearing houses,” also known as interoperability, Donohue and government relations head Linda Rich said in an internal memo dated June 30 and obtained by Reuters. Get the full story »
The head of a new exchange fighting to keep Congress from halting his plans to list movie futures is offering an advisory board seat to the head of the Hollywood opposition.
Robert Swagger, chief executive of the Trend Exchange, discussed the idea in Washington this week when he met with the lawmakers negotiating a final financial regulatory bill. Get the full story »
Reuters | U.S. regulators still have not found evidence that erroneous activity or system malfunctions triggered the recent unprecedented market crash, a Commodity Futures Trading Commission official said on Monday.
More than two weeks after the Dow Jones industrial average lost nearly 700 points in minutes before recovering, regulators and exchange operators are still searching for answers.
