Weizen / Mais: Wer hat Schuld an diesen Preisen ?

"Werden die Spekulanten allen voran sogenannte Index-Fonds..."

Zählen denn Indexfonds zu Spekulanten oder werden diese meisten nicht zu den Commercials gerechnet ?

Will die CFTC denn wirklich grundsätzlich Spekulation unterbinden ?

DJ Gensler: CFTC Will 'Aggressively' Fix Wheat Futures Market

By Bill Tomson
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The Commodity Futures Trading Commission will need
take aggressive actions to fix a broken wheat futures system, despite previous
attempts to reform it, CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler said Tuesday.

The CFTC will look at its regulatory options, including revising position
limits and improving transparency, said Gensler, who also suggested reforms in
the over-the-counter derivatives market.

Consumers will suffer from higher food costs if an ongoing schism between
real-world cash prices and futures prices can't be mended, according to
testimony Gensler provided for a Tuesday hearing held by the Senate's Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations.

"The continued lack of convergence in important segments of the wheat market
has significantly diminished the usefulness of the wheat futures market for
commercial hedgers," Gensler said. "Ultimately, it is the American consumer who
will bear the burden of these increased costs.

The hearing is a follow up to the June release of a 247-page report produced
by the Senate panel, which blamed the failure of the price-hedging system on
"excessive speculation" in the wheat futures market by powerful commodity index
traders who control billions of dollars worth of contracts.

CFTC permission for some index traders to far exceed standard limits on
contract purchases is one of the biggest problems, according to the report and
panel chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. The senator called on the CFTC in a
June press briefing to revoke the exemptions and demanded that all traders be
governed by the limit of 6,500 wheat future contracts.

Gensler, in his testimony, highlighted the massive amount of index fund
contracts tied at the Chicago Board of Trade, a subsidiary of the CME Group
Inc. (CME), but stopped short of agreeing to revoke the exemptions. Instead he
told lawmakers the CFTC is considering doing away with them.

Last year, Gensler said, "index traders held futures contracts representing
the purchase of approximately 1 billion bushels of wheat. The size of the
entire U.S. soft red winter wheat crop for 2007-08 was about 360 million
bushels. Thus, index investors, through futures contracts, were invested in the
equivalent of three years of production of soft red winter wheat."

The CME itself has suggested some fixes to its contracts to help with the
convergence issue. Convergence - or the harmonizing of cash and futures prices
as the futures contract enters delivery - has been a point of contention with
the soft red winter wheat contract as futures prices have been sharply higher
than cash prices for at least two years.

CME won approval in December from the CFTC to overhaul its wheat contract to
improve convergence by adding delivery territories, imposing seasonal storage
rates and lowering the allowable limit of vomitoxin, a fungal byproduct. The
changes, which began to take effect this month, did not impose new limits on
index funds.

A series of hearings beginning on July 28, Gensler said, will be held to see
if the exemptions were granted to meet the legitimate purpose of hedging risks
associated with "the actual use of a commodity."

Another fix being considered, Gensler said, would be the creation of a
"cash-settled" contract after a mandated physical delivery of wheat into the
cash market - something that's "neither required nor an option at contract
expiration" under current rules.

Cash settlement would "eliminate the convergence problem," Gensler said, but
he is still waiting for recommendations he asked the CME to provide.

CME Group Vice Chairman Charlie Carey, who is also scheduled to testify
before the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, also said the
wheat futures market needs to be fixed for wheat hedgers.

Carey downplayed the involvement of index funds, though.

"There is a great deal of misinformation about the role of market users, such
as index funds and speculators, as well as misinterpretations of what is
occurring in our markets," he said. "Four separate studies in the past year and
numerous economists support the fact that market fundamentals, including supply
and demand, weather, currency valuations and other factors, have been the
primary drivers of price volatility."

(Tom Polansek contributed to this story)

-By Bill Tomson, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-646-0088; bill.tomson@dowjones.com

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