Merrill Lynch fined for violating cotton-speculation limits
Kevin G. Hall
McClatchy Newspapers, 7 December 2011
A key financial regulator said Wednesday that it had fined Wall Street powerhouse Merrill Lynch $350,000 for violating rules that limit how many speculative contracts it can hold in markets where bets are made on the price of cotton for future delivery.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said that Merrill Lynch Commodities Inc., a subsidiary of Bank of America, repeatedly had violated limits on how many Cotton No. 2 futures contracts it was allowed to hold. Futures are bets on where the price of a given commodity will be for future delivery.
