BlackRock, Futures Exchanges Balk at CFTC Block Trading Limit
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BlackRock Inc., CME Group Inc. and Intercontinental Exchange Inc. are pressing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to lower a proposed threshold for transactions that occur on centralized futures markets.
The CFTC proposed that 85 percent of all transactions in a futures contract must be done through a market’s central limit order book system, with the remaining 15 percent allowed to be done off-exchange in block trades. If a contract fails to meet the threshold it would have to be taken off the exchange. The proposal is meant to protect price discovery for futures by limiting non-public block trading, according to the CFTC.