Selig Sees Risk of Some Bets Entering ‘Assassination Market’ (1)

Political contracts listed on federally-regulated exchanges should be tied to specific events and not open-ended, the nation’s top derivatives regulator said Tuesday.

“When you have a contract around a political event that isn’t tethered or tied to, for example, an election, that does create a lot of risk that you could back into becoming an assassination market,” Michael Selig, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV’s Tim Stenovec. They spoke on the sidelines of the Futures Industry Association’s annual gathering in Boca Raton, Florida.

The recent killing of Ayatollah ...