Agora-X, the US company that is developing an exchange for trading over-the-counter commodity derivatives, filed a petition to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on November 17 for permission to clear trades in agricultural swap and swaption contracts.
At present, such contracts may not be cleared through a registered derivatives clearing organisation such as CME Group or the New York Mercantile Exchange without specific permission from the CFTC. Agora-X is now asking for that exemption - but on November 5 it also petitioned the CFTC to repeal the ban altogether.
The embryonic exchange, backed by commodity risk management firm FC Stone Group and Nasdaq OMX, said clearing OTC agricultural swaps and swaptions on grains including wheat, corn and soybeans would reduce counterparty risk between market...