IN BRIEF (Page 17)

CFTC blames speculators

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is planning to issue a report next month that suggests that wild swings in oil prices were significantly driven by speculators, the Wall Street Journal reported on its website yesterday.

A 2008 report by the main US futures-market regulator that attributed oil-price swings primarily on supply and demand was based on "deeply flawed data", Bart Chilton, one of four CFTC commissioners, told the paper in an interview on Monday.