Regulating Commodity Speculation Back In EU Spotlight
Debate over the role of speculation in pushing up commodity prices took a new political turn after the European Union's executive arm cut a controversial paragraph from a long-awaited report on improving transparency in markets.
The report, released Wednesday, had already been delayed by a week after French President Nicolas Sarkozy lambasted an earlier version, which said it had found no evidence of "a correlation between the substantial increase in index fund positions and commodity futures prices." In the final version, the controversial section had been removed. Instead, the European Commission said that "while it is clear that there is a strong correlation between positions on derivative markets and spot prices, it is still difficult to assess fully the interactions and the impact of movements in the derivative markets on the volatility of the underlying physical markets."
Publication
Wall Street Journal
Date
February 2, 2011
Cross References
Dodd-Frank Act, Title VII, Sec. 737