[david austin]

the quick...

there are fed regulations in place on commodity trades but the cftc (commod and futures trading commision) is a) way undermanned to really police even what happens at the nymex and b) couldnt enforce trading on other world exchanges such as the ICE (intercont exchange)

so basically if a hedge fund/speculator was found to be manipulating pricing based on massive movements triggered by the CFTC they could simply move the positions through other non-regulated exchanges.

this closure of the 'enron loophole' creates complete transparency among markets requiring a five year trading trail that can be audited effectively. what this record establishes is what these massive funds trades are based on. and if they are found guilty of manipulation they can be effectively punished and that wont include the ability to just shift the contracts to another exchange. the key is that this closure represents a joint effort among all trading exchanges to work together under one umbrella that can effectively be policed by the cftc.

interestingly enough this also opens the doors to the govts willingness to start doing a much better job of monitoring price manipulation that is starting to show up in basic security markets via 'darkpools'