Commodity Futures Trading Commission December 29, 2010 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

On November 10, 2010, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (``CFTC'' or the ``Commission'') published for public comment in the Federal Register a proposal to exempt the trading and clearing of certain options (``Options'') on the CBOE Gold ETF Volatility Index (``GVZ Index''), which would be traded on the Chicago Board Options Exchange (``CBOE''), a national securities exchange, and cleared through the Options Clearing Corporation (``OCC'') in its capacity as a registered securities clearing agency, from the provisions of the Commodity Exchange Act (``CEA'') and the regulations thereunder, to the extent necessary to permit such Options to be so traded and cleared. The Commission also requested comment regarding whether it should provide a categorical exemption that would permit the trading and clearing of options on indexes that measure the volatility of shares of gold exchange-traded funds (``ETFs'') generally, regardless of issuer, including options on any index that measures the magnitude of changes in, and is composed of the price(s) of shares of one or more gold ETFs and the price(s) of any other instrument(s), which other instruments are securities as defined in the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (``the '34 Act''). The Commission has determined to issue this Order essentially as proposed. Authority for these exemptions is found in Sec. 4(c) of the CEA.