Commodity Futures Trading Commission

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is an independent agency of the US government created in 1974, that regulates futures and option markets.

The Commodities Exchange Act ("CEA"), 7 U.S.C. § 1 et seq., prohibits fraudulent conduct in the trading of futures contracts. The stated mission of the CFTC is to foster open, transparent, competitive, and financially sound markets, to avoid systemic risk, and to protect the market users and their funds, consumers, and the public from fraud, manipulation, and abusive practices related to derivatives and other products that are subject to the Commodity Exchange Act. After the Financial crisis of 2007–08 and since 2010 with the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, CFTC has been transitioning to bring more transparency and stricter regulation to the multitrillion dollar swaps market.

History

Futures contracts for agricultural commodities have been traded in the U.S. for more than 150 years and have been under Federal regulation since the 1920s. The Grain Futures Act of 1922 set the basic authority and was changed by the Commodity Exchange Act of 1936 (7 U.S.C. 1 et seq.).

CFTC

CFTC may refer to:

Futures contract

In finance, a futures contract (more colloquially, futures) is a standardized forward contract which can be easily traded between parties other than the two initial parties to the contract. The parties initially agree to buy and sell an asset for a price agreed upon today (the forward price) with delivery and payment occurring at a future point, the delivery date. Because it is a function of an underlying asset, a futures contract is a derivative product.

Contracts are negotiated at futures exchanges, which act as a marketplace between buyers and sellers. The buyer of a contract is said to be long position holder, and the selling party is said to be short position holder. As both parties risk their counterparty walking away if the price goes against them, the contract may involve both parties lodging a margin of the value of the contract with a mutually trusted third party. For example, in gold futures trading, the margin varies between 2% and 20% depending on the volatility of the spot market.

COT

A cot is a camp bed or infant bed.

Cot or COT may also refer to:

In arts and entertainment

In mathematics, science, and technoloy

In government and military use

Foreign exchange market

The foreign exchange market (forex, FX, or currency market) is a global decentralized market for the trading of currencies. This includes all aspects of buying, selling and exchanging currencies at current or determined prices. In terms of volume of trading, it is by far the largest market in the world. The main participants in this market are the larger international banks. Financial centres around the world function as anchors of trading between a wide range of multiple types of buyers and sellers around the clock, with the exception of weekends. The foreign exchange market does not determine the relative values of different currencies, but sets the current market price of the value of one currency as demanded against another.

The foreign exchange market works through financial institutions, and it operates on several levels. Behind the scenes banks turn to a smaller number of financial firms known as “dealers,” who are actively involved in large quantities of foreign exchange trading. Most foreign exchange dealers are banks, so this behind-the-scenes market is sometimes called the “interbank market”, although a few insurance companies and other kinds of financial firms are involved. Trades between foreign exchange dealers can be very large, involving hundreds of millions of dollars. Because of the sovereignty issue when involving two currencies, forex has little (if any) supervisory entity regulating its actions.