When US regulators in late October published new position limits on commodities, it prompted one of the greatest outpourings of sound and fury in US legislative history, with politicians, lawyers and commercial interests lining up to debate what was seen as a fundamental reform of the financial markets.
In a decision split along party lines, the Democrat-dominated Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) voted three to two in favour of approving sweeping new restraints on speculation in agricultural products, energy and metals. The passing of the rule followed nine months of consultation in which the CFTC received some 15,000 letters of comment, and a final vote described by one observer as “one of the longest, strangest and most rancour-filled meetings in the agency's 37-year history”.
