The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) today announced that it will include positions of ICE Futures Europe exchange traders of West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil contracts in its weekly Commitments of Traders (COT) reports. The announcement is in keeping with a July 7th statement by CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler that the agency would work to improve the transparency of the markets it oversees by providing additional data to the public. The first publication of this data will be in the July 28, 2009 COT report, to be released on Friday, July 31, 2009.
“The CFTC has a responsibility to ensure that our markets are transparent and free from fraud, manipulation and other abuses,” Chairman Gensler said. “I am pleased to announce that we will this week begin fulfilling our commitment to greater transparency by including position data the CFTC receives for foreign contracts linked to the settlement price of domestic contracts. We will also continue our work to improve transparency of markets in other areas by providing additional and more relevant information in our weekly COT reports.”