The Commodity Futures Trading Commission will hold a consultative hearing in the next few weeks on whether it should curb speculative energy trading by imposing position limits.
The CFTC is empowered to do so by the Commodity Exchange Act, but at the moment only sets position limits for agricultural commodities. It relies on futures exchanges to set position limits for energy trading, but they are only required to protect against manipulation and congestion, not excessive speculation.
Gary Gensler, incoming chairman of the CFTC, announced today (July 7) that the regulator...