Comment Text:
I am writing to you today to ask the members of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to please impose meaningful position limits on speculative trading of commodities futures. Excessive speculation on commodities like oil, wheat and cotton are driving prices up faster than the "real commercial market" (companies that actually buy the commodities for manufacturing or energy use) would. This is unacceptable in today's tougher economic climate. The time to enact regulation on Wall Street speculators is NOW. We must protect American consumers and companies, and stop the wild speculation of traders. The prices of commodities need to reflect the true supply and demand for those commodities, rather than the speculative activities of Wall Street traders. Please place meaningful and restrictive limits on how many contracts traders can accumulate for any given commodity. Also, allowing greater position limits on cash-settled contracts vs. physically-settled contracts will lead to greater price manipulation -- please do not allow this to happen. In these tough economic times, we need to stop speculators from interfering with the prices of food, energy and other basic items.
Thank you,
Mark J. Weimer
St. Petersburg, FL
