Dangers of Position Limits and Overreaching Regulation
Dangers of Position Limits and Overreaching Regulation William Purpura, Managing Director | Great Lakes Global Limited The CFTC’s proposed position limits along with the complexity and immensity of Dodd-Frank has already caused market participants to take flight from the US markets to OTC and foreign markets which have less onerous regulation. The Commission has often dismissed the probability of regulatory arbitrage as paranoia. One only need to look at the impressive growth in the Brent crude oil contract traded in London in the wake of jawboning about position limits in the US that would affect the WTI crude contract on NYMEX. Chairman Gensler’s view is that there should be “international harmonization” among global regulators to alleviate the threat. This is a wrong approach. The US government, through the CFTC and other agencies has been pressuring other regulators to fall in line, and while there may be some lip service about...