Across the Midwest, one of the worst droughts in decades is ravaging crops and driving the price of corn and other basics to record heights. It’s bad news for consumers, who will pay more at the supermarket as crops whither in the punishing heat.

But famed commodities trader...

First, there was a banking crisis. Now, after the collapse of Peregrine Financial Group, commodities markets may be on the brink of their own emergency, which could reach consumers at the gas pump or the grocery store.

The high-profile failure of two commodities brokerage firms in less than a year...

As Mitt Romney’s refusal to release further tax returns becomes a central issue in the presidential race, a related question first raised in January remains stubbornly unanswered: How did Romney build such a massive individual retirement account?

The size of the GOP presidential candidate's IRA...

When Leon Bressert first heard that his former employer, Peregrine Financial Group, had collapsed amid fraud allegations, he was not surprised. “I was waiting for something like that to happen,” he said.

Bressert, who worked at the Iowa-based commodities brokerage in IT and business development from 1998 to 2001, said...

When commodities brokerage firm MF Global collapsed last October, losing $1.6 billion in customer funds in the process, Christopher Dickerson was sure he'd dodged a bullet. Just one month before the collapse, Dickerson had taken the bulk of his money out of his MF Global account.

"I was thankful to...

As president of the New York Federal Reserve before and during the financial crisis, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner met repeatedly with Barclays officials, according to documents released by the bank and the New York Fed.

Though the subject of those discussions is unknown, they came at a time when...

Don't call it a dark pool.

On Wednesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved a new trading program at the New York Stock Exchange intended to compete with so-called dark pools, private stock trading venues operated by banks like Goldman Sachs and Citi Group as well...

As the Libor manipulation scandal at British banking giant Barclays continues to escalate with the launch of a criminal probe, U.S. traders, former regulators and finance executives say other firms likely engaged in such behavior -- and that inquiries could even lead to jail time.

On Friday, U.K. regulators...

The ballooning interest rate manipulation scandal at Barclays, coupled with stock market instability, is likely to fuel fresh doubts about the integrity of the stock market, insiders said.

“Every time people begin to gain a little confidence, something else comes up,” said Randy Frederick, managing director of active...

Some stock brokers seem to be feeling pessimistic about the market.

This week, short sale recommendations among institutional brokers jumped to 44 percent, up from its average of 35 percent in the first half of the second quarter, according to data compiled by financial technology and consulting firm TIM Group....

Americans are losing faith in the stock market, Securities and Exchange Commission chair Mary Schapiro told Congress on Thursday.

Investors have a "concern about the integrity of the marketplace," and U.S. markets are currently threatened with "an unwillingness [on the part of investors] to ever engage in the markets...

A small band of humans is fighting what it warns is the rise of the machines in financial markets.

A group of two dozen brokers and traders has sued CME Group, the owner of major commodities exchanges in New York and Chicago, arguing that a new rule that took effect...

U.S. regulators are reportedly probing whether high-frequency trading firms have been conducting transactions with themselves in a potentially illegal practice known as "wash trading" that may distort market prices.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are looking into whether high-frequency traders have been buying and...

As stock market officials sound the alarm about rattled investor confidence in the wake of the botched Facebook initial public offering last month, some traders and other market experts say there's a basic problem contributing to the crisis: too many exchanges.

"There's increasing competition over a...

Regulators are trying to catch up with the "cheetahs." That's the nickname bestowed upon high-frequency traders by Bart Chilton, a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency trying to oversee the ultra-fast, computerized buying and selling of securities and derivatives.

They are not even close.

The conviction of Rajat Gupta on insider trading charges is a real score for government prosecutors -- maybe the biggest such conviction in history.

It will also probably barely deter other people from insider trading.

"I think for the next few days people will talk about Gupta, and for...

NEW YORK -- Jurors in a Manhattan federal court Friday found former Goldman Sachs board member Rajat Gupta guilty of conspiracy and securities fraud, only two days after closing arguments ended in the closely watched insider trading case.

Gupta, 63, was found guilty of passing on nonpublic information from Goldman...

NEW YORK -- Prosecutors and defense lawyers offered starkly differing profiles Wednesday of Rajat K. Gupta during closing arguments in the former Goldman Sachs board member's insider trading trial.

"Rajat Gupta abused his position as a company insider," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Tarlowe in an impassioned summation as...

The defense rested its case on Tuesday, the final day of testimony in the insider-trading trial of former Goldman Sachs board member Rajat K. Gupta.

With the prosecution having rested its case on Friday, Judge Jed Rakoff gave jurors the rest of the day off, in part so that...

One question at the heart of the Rajat K. Gupta insider trading trial is whether information the former Goldman Sachs board member allegedly disclosed to hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam was secret. As Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein spent a third day on the witness stand in federal court in Manhattan...