The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Ag Advisory Committee meeting by teleconference Wednesday focused on COVID-19 impacts, with the livestock market situation also discussed. USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue addressed the meeting, reminding that USDA’s cattle market investigation now includes volatility linked to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“As part of this ongoing investigation, [USDA’s] Packers and Stockyards division will determine if there's any evidence of price manipulation, collusion, restrictions on competition, or any unfair practices or unfair advantages,” Perdue commented. He said he would could not share any details of the ongoing investigation.
But USDA Senior Advisor Dudley Hoskins later said that there was no deadline for the conclusion of the investigation. He noted Perdue has been “clear he does not anticipate putting any kind of fictional or manmade timelines on how far that investigation will go or how long it will last.”
The CFTC’s Livestock Market Taskforce is also looking at the situation, and CFTC Chairman Heath Tarbert said the regulator is “putting all of our efforts into making sure that we understand during this period of immense volatility, exactly what's going on in our markets.” As part of the effort, “we are talking to the exchanges, we're talking to market participants, we're talking to the clearing houses, just to make sure that we get a sense of basically any indication that prices are moving in an uneconomic manner relative to the underlying commodity cash price,” he explained.
But he also cautioned little public information is offered on the taskforce’s efforts unless the regulator opts to “take a concrete action on the enforcement side.” As for the surveillance effort, Tarbert said, “you should know that we are doing it, but we cannot reveal the details prematurely.”
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