The article is vague in many ways, but it implies that the CFTC could possibly null and void the price action on metals due to what they believe is "phantom orders"
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-14...
CME Group Inc., the world’s largest futures market, said it will treat inadvertently placed energy and metals trades yesterday as ‘phantom orders,’ though none of the transactions were canceled.
Over a six-minute period, test orders were “inadvertently” placed on the Globex electronic trading system into active energy and metals markets, the Chicago-based company said today in a statement. CME owns the New York Mercantile Exchange, where crude oil, natural gas, heating oil, gasoline, platinum and palladium trade, and the Commodity Exchange in New York, where gold, silver and copper change hands.
That rule governs “phantom trades,” which the exchange defines as transactions caused in error that aren’t authorized or that were made with altered terms such as contract month or price. If CME detects such trades its powers allow “including without limitation, closing the market, deleting bids and offers, and/or suspending new bids and offers,” according to Rule 587.
CME said in the statement. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission was also notified, the company said. CME will “address these transactions in accordance with its Rule 587,” according to the statement.
Funny they never had a problem when Oil went up to $140 a barrel all on false future orders, but now that metals are rising, they are saying "phantom orders". The article is so vague as to what they are going to do, I will be watching closely.