Comment Text:
I understand the need to have appropriate limitations and guidelines regarding trading futures contracts but I urge you to be very careful in the changes you are considering. I am not knowledgeable enough to understand what you should or should not do, but I can tell you our bank does a significant amount of lending for stocker cattle operations, cow/calf operations, wheat producers, and cotton producers. Several of our producers utilize the futures markets to help manage market risk in their respective products. As you are very well aware, the liquidity in these futures contracts is extremely important. We understand that speculators oftentimes will drive futures markets to extremes......possibly sometimes too extreme. But from my point of view that only creates opportunities for the producer who uses futures to manage his pricing risk. My concern is if the limits and guidelines are changed too much it could very negatively affect (and possibly ruin) a tool that for the most part seems to work relatively well for producers.
