Goldman Sachs has been ordered to pay a $1.5 million civil monetary penalty to settle CFTC charges that it failed to diligently supervise one of its employees trading securities futures indexes for several months in late 2007. According to the Order, a former Goldman employee hid an $8.3 billion trading position, resulting in a loss in excess of $100 million for Goldman. Lofchie Comment: One of the persistent themes of Commissioner Chilton has been that the CFTC is not able to impose fines that are high enough, and in particular that the CFTC is not permitted to count each instance of a

The CFTC's Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight (DSIO) issued a no-action letter for Swap Entities (SDs and MSPs), providing (limited) relief from compliance with the prohibition in CFTC Rule 23.22(b) against permitting a person who is subject to a statutory disqualification to effect or be involved in effecting swaps on behalf of the Swap Entity. The attached letter provides relief from the statutory disqualification requirement only with respect to: (i) non-domestic associated persons (APs) of Swap Entities who deal only with "non-domestic swap counterparties"; and (ii) persons

This report addresses the questions posed by Commissioners Aguilar, Paredes, and Gallagher in a September 17 memo to Chairman Schapiro and Director Lewis regarding money market funds. The Commissioners’ specific questions can be grouped into three categories: (i) The first category addresses the causes of investor redemptions of prime money market fund shares and purchases of Treasury money market fund shares during the 2008 financial crisis. (ii) The second category of Commissioner questions covers the efficacy of the 2010 money market fund reforms in three general areas: fund characteristics

SIFMA's Asset Management Group (AMG) submitted the attached comments to the CFTC supporting ISDA's request to defer compliance dates for external business conduct requirements and other information collection rules. SIFMA AMG further states that it agrees with ISDA that the CFTC should provide such an extension through an interim final rule, rather than a no-action letter, to alleviate market concerns regarding the potential for private rights of action. Click here to view letter in full (links externally to SIFMA website).

The SEC's Office of Investor Education and Advocacy and FINRA have issued a new Investor Alert called Year-End Investment Considerations for Individual Investors, which provides individual investors with a few suggestions for year-end investment planning as the year draws to a close. The bulletin outlines five key areas investors should focus on when making investment decisions: Asset Allocation. The end of the year is a reasonable time to review your overall investment portfolio and evaluate your existing asset allocation. Consider Rebalancing. Some of your investments will grow faster than