via Kitco - Judge Knocks Down Position Limits

(Reuters) - A U.S. judge handed an 11th-hour victory to Wall Street's biggest commodity traders on Friday, knocking back tough new regulations that would have cracked down on speculation in energy, grain and metal markets.

Judge Robert Wilkins of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia threw out the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's new position limits rule, and sent the regulation back to the agency for further consideration.

Wilkins ruled that, by law, the CFTC was required to prove that the position limits in commodity markets are necessary to diminish or prevent excessive speculation.

He also ruled that the amendments to the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial oversight law "do not constitute a clear and unambiguous mandate to set position limits, as the Commission argues."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/28/us-cftc-positionlimits-idUSBRE88R1C120120928

Financial Post -

"Banks plan big push into small business sector"

Quite possibly this means a top in the growth cycle commencing after the 2008 financial crisis, but banks will be desperate to lend after the housing bubble demise. What that might mean is that derivatives could forseeably be less of a factor in lending, thus making it palatable to borrow from a bank. Interest rates are likely to remain low for the foreseeable future, and they will want to lend for large amounts.

GBN.V is one of the very few gold mining companies with a significant organic growth profile and that can table a bankable feasibility study, given the available prospects.

http://business.financialpost.com/2012/09/28/banks-plan-big-push-into-small-business-sector/

Note that the bounce in house prices and the peak price came in with moves by the Fed with the renewal of Operation Twist, right along with the bounce in long-dated treasuries. GBN.V is strongly inversely correlated with the long dated U.S. treasury bond price on a monthly basis.

-F6