In late September, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission finalized a unanimous, bipartisan real-time reporting rule that protects and expands post-trade transparency in the swaps markets. Better Markets applauded its decision. 

Not only does the decision address concerns we raised in our comment letter, but it abandons a proposal that would have permitted more than a 19,000 percent increase in public reporting delays for block trades. Better Markets also applauded the CFTC’s support for an expansion of swaps categories subject to real-time public reporting as opposed to delayed public reporting.

The real-time reporting rule is especially noteworthy for the CFTC and its staff’s honorable defense of the public interest in the face of a flurry of last-minute lobbying by Wall Street’s largest derivatives dealers and their trade associations as well as their largest clients. These interests pulled out all the stops in their attempts to convince the CFTC to maintain unnecessary advantages for the largest derivatives dealers already dominating the swaps markets. That lobbying effort has rightly failed.

Read Better Markets’ press release and comment letter.