The CFTC Division of Market Oversight announced that it granted two extensions to ICE Futures U.S.: a 45-day extension of the public comment period, and a 60-day extension of the stay period, for Submission No. 15-101, dated May 11, 2015. The stay is based on the premise that an inadequate explanation of the subject rule amendment accompanied the rule amendment. Under the amendment, ICE Futures U.S. would adopt a new estimation for deliverable supply on which position limits for eight of their NYISO Zone G futures contracts would be based. Comments must be submitted electronically on or before

CFTC Commissioner J. Christopher Giancarlo revisited his own six-month-old white paper analyzing the CFTC's swaps trading regulatory framework. He provided a progress report on the issue. The Commissioner's white paper focused on eight areas including: (i) limitations on the permitted methods of execution, (ii) procedures regarding block transactions, (iii) the made-available-to-trade process, (iv) the void ab initio policy for swaps not accepted for clearing, (v) the process for providing confirmations of uncleared swaps, (vi) the embargo rule, (vii) the Core Principles to which swap

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ("OCC") issued a bulletin clarifying the extent to which national banks and federal branches may make or accept delivery of physical commodities to hedge commodity derivatives transactions. The bulletin also provides calculation guidance for determining whether physical hedging activities comprise a normal portion of risk management activities. Specifically, the bulletin (i) supplements BC-277, which outlines the OCC's supervisory expectations for the prudent risk management of financial derivatives, (ii) clarifies when a bank's physical commodity

The Office of Financial Research ("OFR") issued a brief in which OFR consultants Paul Glasserman and Bert Loudis examined a set of systemic importance indicators established by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. These indicators are intended to measure the threat to global financial stability that a large bank could pose if it were to fail. The Basel Committee's scoring methodology indicated that the largest U.S. banks rank relatively high in systemic importance based on measures of size, interconnectedness, complexity, cross-jurisdictional activity and the provision of services with

The MSRB announced that new officers and members will join its Board of Directors and begin their terms on October 1, 2015. Nathaniel Singer will serve as the new Chair of the Board; Colleen Woodell, as the new Vice-Chair. Additional new members and public representatives of the board will include Ronald Dieckman, Megan Kilgore, Mark Kim and Andrew Sanford. See: MSRB Press Release.