Commodity swap data goes from bad to worse

Lack of regulatory guidance, collaboration and market confusion continue to plague SDR reports

The managing director at a US swap dealer calls it “completely unusable”. The head of trading at a large hedge fund says “it’s just not clean enough” to incorporate into the firm’s investment process. A former general counsel at the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) admits it hasn’t lived up to expectations.

All three are referring to the over-the-counter commodity trade information available from swap data repositories (SDRs), which market participants claim is bad and getting