commodity futures

The Tokyo Commodity Exchange is planning to take over the farm market operations of the Tokyo Grain Exchange as proposed by the Japan Commodity Futures Industry Association, the presidents of the two exchanges said at separate press conferences Tuesday.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has issued a no-action letter which permits the offer and sale of a futures contract based on Turkey's blue-chip stock index.

Tokyo Commodity Exchange Incorporated (Tocom), Japan's largest commodity futures exchange, is planning to re-list its gasoil futures contract to May 6 in 2010.

But consumers still do not know that as Congress passed legislation with repeal of Glass/Stegal 1999 and the Commodity Futures Act of December 17, 2000, main-street Americans also got hit over the head for $4 a gallon gasoline, thanks to letting pension funds and investment banks secretly speculate in oil futures as well.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is looking into that practice.

According to the Financial Services Commission (FSC), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued a no-action letter on November 28, permitting the offer and sale in the US of the Korea Exchange's futures contracts based on the KOSPI 200 Stock Index (KOSPI 200).

These excerpts of US General Accounting Office reports review changes in energy markets that potentially affect prices and the efforts of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to various degrees of success, to oversee trading in crude oil, unleaded gasoline, natural gas and heating oil.

The US commodity futures regulator charged a Dutch trading fund and its Chicago unit with manipulating oil markets in March 2007, an action resulting from the commissionCOs nationwide probe into illegal energy trading.

But this high demand phenomenon - sometimes aided by manufactured supply panic - is used by investors/ "new speculators" who enter into investing in commodity futures. Specifically, these are corporate and government pension funds, university endowments and last but not least, the omnipresent hedge funds.

Unlike other commodity markets, which are federally regulated, electronic trading on energy markets is immune from government oversight, thanks to a loophole inserted into the 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization ACt by an unknown senator acting at Enron's behest.

Energy prices for crude oil, heating oil, unleaded gasoline, and natural gas have risen substantially since 2002, generating questions about the role derivatives markets have played and the scope of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's (CFTC) authority.