Financial firms, including JP Morgan Chase and Goldman, which play a dominant role in the energy futures market, brought their case to federal regulators Wednesday against new limits on speculative trading that would apply to them in their role as market middlemen.
Speculative trading has been blamed by some market watchers for widening the oil price swings that have punished industries and consumers.
Marking a potential shift for the government, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission may be moving toward setting new restraints on the amount of trading in energy futures by Wall Street firms and other participants that are solely financial investors.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman Gary Gensler says he wants to limit any possible impact of speculative trading on prices in energy futures.
What was most amazing about the measures to regulate over-the-counter derivatives laid out this week by the newly confirmed chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Gary Gensler, was that these things aren’t already being done.
