CFTC finds no NYMEX market manipulation evidence Reuters, 02.26.03, 2:34 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal futures market regulators said Wednesday they have found no evidence that market manipulation was behind soaring prices for natural gas and other energy products traded at the New York Mercantile Exchange. Officials at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which oversees U.S. futures market, said they have increased surveillance in NYMEX's energy pits and looked closely at traders holding large positions in the exchange's natural gas, heating oil, crude oil and gasoline futures as prices for the contracts have skyrocketed. "There was nothing in that analysis that gave us any pause or gave us any feeling that there was any sort of manipulation taking place," Michael Gorham, director of the CFTC's market oversight division, told Reuters in an interview. "Not only were we looking at the data and the (contract) positions, but we also had people doing much more intensive floor surveillance in the NYMEX pits," he said. Gorham said NYMEX energy contracts were responding to market conditions of colder weather than normal, stronger heating demand and below-average petroleum and natural gas inventories. http://www.forbes.com/business/energy/newswire/2003/02/26/rtr891263.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2163046.stm A french financial journalist I met 3 years ago told me that a friend of him working for a brokerage firm participates in these kind of collusion for technological stocks in France. Of course he can put that in a written article hahaha !