CFTC Chair Timothy Massad spoke about fine-tuning and finishing CFTC rules in progress, increasing the "vigorous financial surveillance" of futures commission merchants ("FCMs"), and maintaining strong and stable clearinghouses. He delivered his remarks at the National Grain and Feed Association's annual convention. According to Chair Massad, the biggest challenge faced by the CFTC is a lack of resources, particularly financial resources, which hampers the CFTC's ability to respond quickly to market participants, deal with cybersecurity threats and properly address the challenges posed by high

The Office of Financial Research published a brief titled "Quicksilver Markets" which asserts that U.S. stock prices today are high by historical standards. The brief uses a quantitative threshold to identify potential stock market bubbles. The brief, which was authored by Ted Berg, found that markets can change "rapidly and unpredictably," and that these changes are "sharpest and most damaging" when asset valuations are at extreme highs. The brief notes that these high valuations have "important implications for expected investment returns and, potentially, for financial stability." The brief

The Futures Industry Association ("FIA") and FIA Europe issued the sixth in a series of special reports that cover the technical requirements of MiFID II regulations by the European Securities Markets Authorities ("ESMA"). Specifically, the new report offers an overview of ESMA's proposals that require central counterparties ("CCPs") and trading venues to have nondiscriminatory and transparent access to one another as well as to benchmarks. According to the report, Articles 35 through 37 of the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation provide that (i) CCPs must clear financial instruments

The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council ("FFIEC") provided an overview of cybersecurity priorities for 2015. The priorities include seven workstreams that stem from the FFIEC's 2014 pilot assessment of cybersecurity readiness at financial institutions. The FFIEC also announced that the planned work includes the development and issuance of a self-assessment tool that financial institutions can use to evaluate their readiness to respond to cyber threats. See: FFIEC Press Release.

The CFTC released its FY 2014 Annual Performance Report ("Report") and FY 2016 Annual Performance Plan ("Plan"). Together, they provide an overview of the CFTC's performance and information about its achievements and challenges. The Report stated that in FY 2014, the CFTC made progress toward achieving its "mission and strategic goals." However, the Report noted, progress was hampered by the resource constraints and reallocations involved in writing and maintaining rules required under Dodd-Frank. The Report also stated that although the CFTC's "regulatory purview has expanded in scope, scale