One thing will be uppermost in the minds of US and international futures executives gathering for the FIA Boca conference on March 11 – a regulatory environment more uncertain than anyone has experienced in the past 35 years.
As market leaders head to the Futures Industry Association’s spring conference in Boca Raton, Florida, Washington insiders and experts are expecting the US Senate to confirm Gary Gensler as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the coming days.
Gensler is likely to be a key player in shaping the new structure of rules and oversight for US financial markets. But despite his forthright comments in his Senate confirmation hearing on February 25, no one – probably not even President Barack Obama – yet has more than a hazy idea of what the regulatory landscape will turn out to be.
And there may be many battles to come. The...