Editing Commodity Futures Trading Commission (section)

==History==

{{more citations needed section|date=September 2024}}

[[Futures contracts]] for agricultural [[commodities]] have been traded in the U.S. for more than 150 years and have been under federal regulation since the 1920s.<ref>''See'' the [[Futures Trading Act of 1921]], Declared unconstitutional in [[Hill v. Wallace]] 259 U.S. 44 (1922), the [[Grain Futures Act]] of 1922 and [[Board of Trade of City of Chicago v. Olsen]] 262 US 1 (1923).</ref> The [[Grain Futures Act]] of 1922 set the basic authority and was changed by the [[Commodity Exchange Act]] of 1936 (7 U.S.C. 1 et seq.).<ref name="CRS 2005">{{cite web |title=Agriculture: A Glossary of Terms, Programs, and Laws, 2005 Edition |website=Congressional Research Service |url=https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/97-905 |format=PDF |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210520110634/https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/97-905 |archive-date=2021-05-20 |date=June 16, 2005}}</ref><ref name="auto">{{cite web |url=http://www.cftc.gov/cftc/cftchome.htm |publisher=CFTC |title=About}}</ref>

Since the 1970s,<ref>{{cite journal |title=Futures Markets: Their Purpose, Their History, Their Growth, Their Successes and Failures |author=Dennis W. Carlton |journal=Journal of Futures Markets |year=1984 |volume=4 |number=3 |pages=237–71 |doi=10.1002/fut.3990040302|id={{ProQuest|228205962}} }}</ref> trading in futures contracts has rapidly expanded beyond traditional physical and agricultural commodities into a vast array of financial instruments, including foreign currencies, U.S. and foreign government securities, and U.S. and foreign stock indices.{{citation needed|date=September 2024}}

Congress created the CFTC in 1974 as an independent federal regulatory agency. The [[Commodity Futures Trading Commission Act of 1974]] (P.L. 93-463) created the CFTC to replace the [[U.S. Department of Agriculture]]'s [[Commodity Exchange Authority]].{{citation needed|date=September 2024}} The Act made extensive changes to the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) of 1936, which itself amended the original Grain Futures Act of 1922.  (7 U.S.C. 1 et seq.).<ref name="auto"/><ref name="CRS 2005" /> In 1975, the first members were selected, and John T. O'Hara became its first chairman.{{citation needed|date=September 2024}}

The CFTC's mandate was renewed and expanded in December 2000 when Congress passed the [[Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000]], which instructed the [[U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission|Securities and Exchange Commission]] (SEC) and the CFTC to develop a joint regulatory regime for [[single-stock futures]], the products of which began trading in November 2002.{{citation needed|date=September 2024}}

In 2010, the [[Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act]] expanded the CFTC's regulatory authority into the [[derivatives market|swaps markets]].{{citation needed|date=September 2024}} The swaps markets currently have a notional value of more than $400 trillion.{{citation needed|date=September 2024}}