KANSAS EXCHANGE HITS CFTC POSITION LIMIT PLAN

  The Kansas City Board of Trade,
  KCBT, has asked federal futures regulators to modify a proposal
  to raise the Chicago Board of Trade's, CBT, speculative
  position limits on wheat futures contracts, saying the plan
  would put the the Kansas exchange "at a serious competitive
  disadvantage."
      The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, CFTC, last month
  proposed raising CBT wheat speculative limits to 1,200
  contracts all months net from 600 contracts, and to 900
  contracts for any single month from 600 contracts.
      At the same time, CFTC proposed leaving KCBT's wheat
  speculative position limits unchanged.
      "Higher limits for CBT wheat than for KCBT wheat would
  significantly impair the KCBT's ability to compete with the CBT
  for speculative interest," Michael Braude, president of the
  Kansas exchange, said in a letter to CFTC.
      A CFTC spokesman said the commission took into account open
  interest affected by existing speculative limits in proposing
  to raise CBT's limits.
      KCBT said the CFTC proposal would reduce hedging
  efficiency, constrain growth of intermarket spreading and of
  the exchange's wheat options contract and impair its ability to
  attract large speculators.
      The Kansas City exchange asked the commission to amend its
  proposal to change the limits for KCBT wheat to the exact same
  bushel amount as specified for CBT wheat.
      CFTC will consider public comments on the proposal until
  June 3.
  

