Risk Management

The NGFA joined 102 other organizations this week to support the so-called “Main Street Tax Certainty Act of 2019” (H.R. 216), which would make permanent the Section 199A 20 percent qualified business income deduction. Led by Reps. Jason Smith, R-Mo., and Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, in the House and Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., in the Senate, the bipartisan legislation would help ensure permanent tax relief for employers organized as S corporations, partnerships and sole proprietorships, as well as preserve Section 199A benefits for cooperatives and their farmer-owners. “Despite the economic ... Read More

The Senate Agriculture Committee on April 1 approved Heath Tarbert’s nomination to become chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), bringing him one step closer to leading the agency. A Republican who currently serves as assistant secretary of the treasury for international affairs, Tarbert would succeed fellow Republican Chris Giancarlo if confirmed by the full Senate. During his testimony at the committee’s March 13 confirmation hearing, Tarbert stressed the CFTC’s special obligation to ensure “that our derivatives markets are open, transparent, competitive and ... Read More

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Market Intelligence Branch in the Division of Market Oversight (DMO) issued a report on March 27 that analyzed the entering of orders manually and automatically in commodity futures markets in the United States to determine how technological change is affecting futures trading. DMO staff used internal CFTC transactional data for 30 futures contracts during the period January 2013 – December 2018, and examined what effects, if any, the manual and automated order placement mechanisms had on these markets. The research produced the following ... Read More

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Center for Risk Management Education and Research (CRMER) at Kansas State University will host the 2nd annual agricultural commodity futures conference on April 11-12, in Overland Park, Kan. The conference brings together federal, state, and local governments with agribusiness and academia to discuss a range of topics that are important to the agricultural community who depend on the futures markets. The full program, conference details and a registration link can be found here. Last year, the conference sold out, ... Read More

By Todd Kemp, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Treasurer The Senate Agriculture Committee on March 13 conducted a confirmation hearing on the nomination of Heath Tarbert to serve as the next chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). A Republican who currently serves as assistant secretary of the treasury for international affairs, Tarbert would succeed fellow Republican Chris Giancarlo if confirmed by the full Senate. During his testimony, Tarbert stressed the CFTC’s special obligation to “…ensur(e) that our derivatives markets are open, transparent, ... Read More

By Max Fisher, Director of Economics and Government Relations NGFA helped organize and participated in a Feb. 7 meet-and-greet with Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) nominee Heath Tarbert, during which he discussed his views on hedging, high-frequency trading and user fees, among other topics. Tarbert currently is assistant secretary for international markets and investment policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury and on Jan. 9 was nominated by President Trump nominee to succeed current CFTC Chairman Chris Giancarlo when his term ends in April 2019. Prior to joining ... Read More

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has announced an updated release schedule for CFTC market data reports that were suspended during the federal government shutdown. CFTC suspended publication of its weekly Commitments of Traders report (COT), the weekly Cotton On Call report (COC), and the monthly Bank Participation Report (BPR) during the shutdown. The agency’s Division of Market Oversight’s Market Intelligence Branch said in a Jan. 29 announcement that it will begin publishing these reports again with the schedule below: COT: The last COT report was published on Dec. 21, ... Read More

By Todd Kemp, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Treasurer The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on Jan. 20 issued final regulations for portions of Section 199A contained in the tax law signed into law in December 2017, and in doing so adopted NGFA recommendations regarding the “dealing in commodities” definition. Of particular concern to NGFA members not organized as C-corporations, the preliminary version of the new regulation – published as a proposed rule by the IRS last October – could have excluded certain non-C corporation taxpayers from qualifying for the new 20 percent ... Read More

The second annual Agricultural Commodity Futures Conference, jointly hosted by Kansas State University’s Center for Risk Management Education and Research and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), will be conducted April 11-12 in Overland Park, Kan.  NGFA members interested in attending can find additional information and can register for the conference here. A registration fee is assessed, and significant savings are available for those registering by April 1. The conference brings together federal, state and local governments with agribusiness and academia to discuss a ... Read More

President Donald Trump announced in December his intention to nominate Heath Tarbert, currently assistant secretary for international markets at the U.S. Treasury Department, to become chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) when current Chairman Christopher Giancarlo’s term expires in April. At Treasury, Tarbert oversees the department’s work on economic development, international financial stability, trade policy, energy and infrastructure projects, and technical assistance to foreign governments. Before joining the Treasury Department in October 2017, he was a partner ... Read More