CMC Applauds CFTC Decison To Supplement COT Report
December 7, 2006, Washington, DC - The Commodity Markets Council (CMC) applauds the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's (CFTC) decision to publish an additional Commitments of Traders (COT) report. CMC has been the industry leader advocating for the segregation of index trader positions from the noncommercial and commercial categories in the COT report. We congratulate the CFTC on its efforts to bring greater transparency to the marketplace.
"CMC believes that the revised COT report will provide more accurate and useful information that improves transparency for the traditional hedger as well as for the public trading community," commented Dan Brophy, chairman of the CMC Futures Committee. "As we have maintained all along, index fund activity is completely legitimate trading activity, albeit non-traditional."
While CMC welcomes index fund involvement in the markets, Brophy notes that "such participants have wholly different considerations motivating their behavior than traditional commercial grain hedgers, and the industry needed the assistance of the CFTC in segregating this activity."
CMC, formerly the National Grain Trade Council, is a North American trade association whose membership brings together commodity futures exchanges and boards of trade with their industry counterparts in the agriculture and energy complex, including agricultural food merchandisers, processors, and refiners; futures commission merchants; food and beverage manufacturers; transportation companies; and financial institutions.
Contact: Christine Cochran Director of Government Relations (202) 842-0400, x. 101 ccochran@commoditymkts.org