London, 4 November 2010

The U.S. futures regulator must gather and analyze data on the swaps market before it can determine appropriate speculative position limits, a top official of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission told Reuters on Wednesday.

The Dodd-Frank financial reform law mandates the CFTC to finalize position limits for energy and metals futures and swaps markets by mid-January -- well before the agency has tools to collect and analyze data on the swaps market.

CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler has suggested the agency has the option of proposing a position limits formula by the deadline, but waiting to phase in the limits until a future date, when the CFTC gets the information it needs.

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