>>Information on commodity trades can be hard to come by. Some contracts are exchanged privately between two parties who do not have to disclose the transaction. There are also two exchanges that trade oil and other goods in the United States. One, the New York Mercantile Exchange, or Nymex, is closely regulated. The other, Intercontinental Exchange, has set up a market in London, where trading can occur beyond the purview of U.S. regulators.<<
This is for Bob. We previously had a brief exchange about the oil market not being transparent. This is an example of that.
Obviously, the market is not completely opaque, but there is potential for manipulation, and insufficient oversight, as noted in the article Karen posted:
"Michael Greenberger, a professor at the University of Maryland and former CFTC commissioner, said there were loopholes the agency could close without much effort.
"'There's smoke here, and the CFTC hasn't wanted to look if there's a fire,'" he said. 'Now they say they want to look, but they need the data. . . . But these are dark markets. They don't even know who's doing the trading.'"
- Allen |
