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"Eighteen years ago, when futures exchanges were authorized to trade stock index products, the ban on single stock futures was enacted as a pilot program that would be reviewed in short order by the appropriate regulatory agencies. In November 1999, the President’s Working Group, composed of the CFTC, SEC, Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department, recognized that single stock futures could be valuable instruments for individual and institutional investors once the proper regulatory structure had been resolved. We are gratified that the CFTC and SEC at last have reached agreement on a regulatory structure for these products. We have not had a chance to review the lengthy compromise document and cannot comment on the specific provisions, but we hope that it will serve to move the process forward and ensure that important legislation to lift the 18-year-old single stock futures ban is passed this year.
"This positive development could not have been accomplished without the hard work and commitment of CFTC Chairman Bill Rainer and his staff, the willingness to achieve compromise on the part of SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt, the important role of Treasury Secretary Larry Summers as facilitator in gaining consensus on this issue and the leadership of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in raising public awareness about the vital function of derivatives in financial risk management. They are to be applauded for their intense efforts to come up with what we hope will be a desirable product."
