The top US derivatives regulator said Friday that his agency takes market oversight "very seriously" and that its enforcement division has been looking at oil trading during the Iran war. Michael Selig, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said the agency's enforcement division had been looking into the trading since March 23. On that day, there was a spike in trading activity just before President Donald Trump backed away from threats to strike Iranian power plants.
"Our enforcement division has been looking at all these trades," CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. "We take this stuff very seriously." He added: "We are on top of this and, rest assured, people can have confidence in the markets as long as I'm in the seat."
Traders in a two-minute window on the morning of March 23 sold contracts equivalent to at least 6 million barrels of Brent and West Texas Intermediate, more than 8.5 times the volume that had changed hands at that time in the morning over the prior week, Bloomberg has reported. Oil trading volumes spiked at key moments this spring ahead of some of Trump's announcements, raising concerns about potential misuse of non-public information to make well-timed price bets.
In addition to discussing oil markets, Selig said the agency was watching prediction markets for any signs of manipulation ahead of the US mid-term elections. He also said he was "very disappointed" that US lawmakers didn't pass a new law for crypto, known as the Clarity Act.
Source: Bloomberg Markets · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing