WASHINGTON -- Clearinghouses, their members, and swap dealers will have to report large swaps positions in 46 commodities to the U.S. futures regulator daily starting in six to 10 months in a plan unveiled on Tuesday.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said about 180 trading firms and swap dealers and five clearinghouses likely will need to report positions, an effort to help the agency police position limits for speculative trades as part of the sweeping new Wall Street reform law. The CFTC has intensified its focus on trading activity of banks and funds in commodity markets since 2008, when prices spiked to record levels in oil, wheat, and many other markets, prompting demands from consumers and lawmakers to crack down.

The proposed plan, which builds on CFTC's monthly "special call" report by expanding the number of firms that must report as well as increasing the frequency to daily, is a key piece of the CFTC approach to position limits, a separate proposal that will be unveiled in the next month. This proposal sets the bar for mandatory daily reporting high enough to exclude most end-users, an official said, and applies only to "economically equivalent" swaps that are either based on a futures price or mirror a futures contract.

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