The comment file on round-the-clock energy futures was due to close on Monday, and the CFTC says it now runs to August 26
Thirty days is what the industry asked for and thirty days is what it got.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said on July 23 that it is extending the comment deadline on its request covering two developments in energy derivatives, moving it to August 26. The old deadline is Monday, July 27. The Commission gives two reasons: commenters asked, and it has added several questions to the request after what it describes as extensive conversations with industry.
The request itself covers two things that sound similar and are not. The first is whether standard futures contracts, energy futures among them, should trade on a 24/7 schedule without any change to their fixed expiration, delivery or settlement terms. The second is whether perpetual contracts should be listed when they reference a physically delivered or storable energy commodity, crude oil being the Commission's own example. A perpetual contract has no expiry date, which is the whole difficulty when the thing underneath it has to be stored somewhere and eventually delivered.
What the Commission wants to hear about is unusually well specified for a document of this kind. It asks about the reliability and manipulation resistance of reference prices, about market surveillance and operational readiness, about the federal speculative position limits regime, about margin, clearing and settlement, about customer protection, and about the effects on the underlying physical markets and the commercial participants who depend on them.
This docket has already produced one confrontation. On July 9 the Commission said it would stay the listing of a contract that would have let the Chicago Mercantile Exchange begin 24/7 trading in crude oil futures as soon as the following day, using its authority under Regulation 40.2(c). CME had filed to self-certify the contract on July 8, three weeks into the comment period. Chairman Michael S. Selig said in that release that the Commission does not take a one size fits all approach to 24/7 trading and called the exchange's decision wholly inappropriate, adding that exchanges are encouraged to work with staff on legal issues before seeking to list novel contracts. CME had filed simultaneously under both routes available to it, self-certification under Regulation 40.2 and Commission review under 40.3, and the Commission said it would review the second while staying the first.
One discrepancy is worth stating rather than smoothing over. The Federal Register notice that set the original deadline, document 2026-12784, published on June 25, says comments must be received on or before July 27, 2026. A search of Federal Register documents from this agency published on or after July 22 returns nothing, so as of this run the extension exists as a press release on the Commission's website and not yet as a notice in the register. That gap is routine and usually closes within days. It is noted here because the deadline of record and the deadline the Commission has announced are currently different dates, and anyone filing near the line should know which is which.
The same question is live at the other markets regulator. The Securities and Exchange Commission announced on July 23 that it will hold a public roundtable on September 17 on moving United States equity markets to 24-hour trading, taking comments to file number 4-913.
This item runs three days after the extension was announced. It runs because the deadline it moves was Monday, and because the file it reopens is open now.
