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Sep 24, 2015
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) held a meeting of the Agricultural Advisory Committee this week, chaired by CFTC Chairman Timothy Massad.
Topics on the agenda included trends in the Futures Commission Merchants (FCM) industry, position limits and select ag markets. Commissioner Christopher Giancarlo raised concerns that the consolidating FCM industry is moving away from serving smaller agricultural producers. The FCM industry has consolidated from 180 FCMs in 2005 to 76 in 2014. However, a large share of the FCMs in 2005 were actually introducing brokers who held no customer assets and have now stopped registering as FCMs.
While customer assets have grown by 53 percent from 2005 to 2014, the top 10 largest FCMs hold an increasingly large share. The top 10 now hold 77 percent of all customer assets, about $196 billion. Massad also noted that security concerns and hacking; automated trading; and a proposed rule for uncleared swaps are topics on the CFTC's agenda for the fall.
Commissioner Sharon Bowen also attended the session. These three commissioners—Massad, Bowen and Giancarlo fill the only CFTC commissioner seats, with two commission seats currently unfilled and likely to remain vacant until after the 2016 election.
