U.S. banks’ ownership and trading of physical commodities will face further scrutiny today when the heads of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission testify before the Senate Banking Committee today, Bloomberg News reported today. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who led a hearing on the issue last week, said that he plans to question the CFTC’s Gary Gensler and the SEC’s Mary Jo White on their oversight when the two chairman appear before the chamber’s Banking Committee on implementation of Dodd-Frank Act reforms. JPMorgan Chase & Co. is among lenders facing political pressure after the Federal Reserve said this month that it will review a decade-old decision letting them trade commodities regarded as complementary to banking. JPMorgan, which was accused yesterday by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission of manipulating power markets in 2010 and 2011, said on July 26 that it plans to sell or spin off holdings including warehouses, stakes in power plants and traders of gas, power and coal.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2013-07-29/regulators-face-scrutiny…
To view the prepared hearing testimony from today’s Senate Banking Committee hearing titled “Mitigating Systemic Risk in Financial Markets through Wall Street Reforms,” please click here:
http://www.banking.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hear…