On one side of the National Mall in Washington DC the Senate held a confirmation hearing on three Commodity Futures Trading Commission nominees, while on the other side the House of Representatives appropriations committee heard yet another desperate plea from the acting CFTC commissioner for additional funding. It’s hard to determine which hearing was the more significant to the future of the regulator and the US economy. The CFTC is the regulator of previously unregulated over-the-counter traded derivatives contracts that were at the center of the 2008 economic collapse. Since the 2008 collapse these derivative contracts, held mainly by Wall…
CFTC Nominees Sail Through Senate Hearing, House Hears Warning
Mark Melin
Mark Melin is an alternative investment practitioner whose specialty is recognizing the impact of beta market environment on a technical trading strategy. A portfolio and industry consultant, wrote or edited three books including High Performance Managed Futures (Wiley 2010) and The Chicago Board of Trade’s Handbook of Futures and Options (McGraw-Hill 2008) and taught a course at Northwestern University's executive education program.