I was wondering how this would effect the markets. There has been talk of raising margin on futures up the stock type of margins. Since every market is connected, that would represent 100's of billions of dollar in cash disappearing from the markets,if not trillions. If they raise margin on es's up to 50 percent, wouldnt that sink stocks. Also the bulk of the rally was because of commodity and financials. The financial companies, like goldman made the bulk of their money because of trading. if they cant trade at their margin levels, wouldnt they get hurt? japana and korea already started raising margins, so it begs toquestion how high will we go on margin? http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2009/07/08/afx6629108.html
Where does it say that the Fed is about to review rules on margin and holdings of future and derivative products?
The threat of legislation/intervention is an effort to "shakedown" the futures and options exchanges for campaign contributions.
Futures margins aren't going up. End of story. If you make trading/money making more difficult in country X, trader will use the internet to trade through country Y's exchange. This is happening now, somewhat, with NYMEX WTI v. ICE. These idiots in Washington couldn't fix a broken toaster. Fortunately, the futures markets are one place where things have been smooth. Oil at $145? Speculators? We're messengers. When you have an idiot cowboy president who's talking about dropping NUCLEAR bunker busting bombs on the third largest oil exporter, YES, crude will catch a bid. DUH.