here at the new york mercantile exchange, it's traded alongside cotton and coffee, copper and steel by brokers who buy and sell contracts to deliver those goods at a certain price at some date in the future. it was created so that farmers could gauge what their unharvested crops would be worth months in advance, so that factories could lock in the best price for raw materials and airlines could manage their fuel costs. but in late 2007, that market started to behave erratically. and when oil doubled to more than $147 a barrel, no one was more suspicious than dan gilligan. >> we have to make sure that the futures market is an honest market. >> as the president of the petroleum marketers association, he represents more than 8,000 retail and wholesale suppliers, everyone from home heating oil companies to gas station owners. when we talked to him in the summer of 2008, his members were getting blamed for gouging the public even though their costs had also gone through the roof. he told us the problem was in the commodities markets, which had been invaded by a new breed of investor. >> app

gold future prices hit its highest level in just over five months on the new york mercantile exchange on tuesday. yuko? >> ramin, now, ahead of the key european central bank policy meeting on thursday, investors are hoping for ecb action to address the debt crisis in the region. how have the euro been trading today? >> yeah, of course, that's a major focus. ecb meeting coming up on thursday. having a look at currency, top of the page, top of the screen, rather, 78.44-48 dollar jsh yen. the euro, 98.30-35. a major focus coming up to and following the ecb meeting on thursday, yuko. we'll keep track of all of that and the stocks and sectors i mentioned before. back to you. >> thanks, always, ramin mellegard at the tokyo stock exchange. >>> the drought in the united states may trigger another food crisis across the globe. to avoid this, three agencies at the united nations are urging governments around the world to take joint action. the food and agriculture organization, the world food program, and the international fund for agricultural development released a statement saying that corn

well i'm in new york which means i had a chance to sit down with a real industry veteran oks a commodities and futures industry veteran he was the board member at the new york mercantile exchange and he was president of the ny mex clearinghouse so he really has been intimately involved in monitoring these markets and seen more regulation has faltered he says in the case of high frequency trading the u.s. is way behind the curve late to the party if you will he also said with all the focus on washington dysfunction directed at congress that's taken a little bit of the attention away from the regulators who deserve some of that scrutiny too but you don't have to hear from me here's more from him. my real question to them was how could you be so far behind when you have other countries like canada and germany coming out being proactive and then you know the united states just you know months ago saying well we need to learn about this and then they just keep you know the big you have to have to learn about it but they should have known about it she should have been on top of it we were at the forefront of electronic trading you know we were the ones that where when it really move

well i'm in new york which means i had a chance to sit down with a real industry veteran oks a commodities and futures industry veteran he was the board member at the new york mercantile exchange and he.

it happened during late trading on the new york mercantile exchange. he price fell another dollar and change to close at 95.29. there are several theories about what might have happened, everything from price manipulation to a trader hitting the wrong button. as you know, where oil prices go, the cost of gasoline should follow, makes sense, right? triple a reports the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded held steady overnight. but still up more than ten cents from last month. gerri willis is with us. tell us what -- do you know? >> no idea. >> shep: come on. >> i can see you now. >> shep: usually there is -- you can point to something, something that happened in the middle east or refineries or something. >> no. somebody out there knows, but it's not me. and it's not even regulators out there. you mentioned the bad finger trader. maybe a computer glitch. we have seen a lot of computerized trading problems. maybe it was intentional. maybe somebody made a trade to sell off high priced gas. who knows? even the people who run the exchanges are say

i'm sharon epperson here on the floor of the new york mercantile exchange. prices closing up over $25 on this session, closing right around 1780 an ounce. a lot of traders here on the floor say there is no way going into the end of the month, the end of the quarter they want to be short this market. there is too much uncertainty going on. they're listening to what's happening at the u.n. general assembly between iran and israel's prime ministers talking and they're also watching what is happening in the euro zone. chinese stimulus. perhaps more of that on the table with the weak data we got from there. a lot of reasons to be long this market. silver 3r50iss also near the highs of the session as we close here. and even copper prices that have been on a bit of a roller coaster ride given a little bit of a lift. back to you. >> all right. thank you very much, sharon. let's get some trading action talk with bob piz ni on the floor. hey, bob. >> we rallied mid-morning. the spanish budget came out. believe it or not. yes, it moves the stock market here. the cuts w

crude stock piles jumped 8 1/2 million barrels last week. 91.98 on the no, mercantile exchange. -- new yorkexchange. shares of adobe system on the rise ahead of the report due out after the closing bell. widely seen as indicator of overall health of software sector and precursor for oracle's earnings due out september 20th. and bill gates and warren buffett are first and second on top of forbes list of wealthiest people in the u.s. for a 12th straight year. gates has been first in nine straight years. and now we countdown to the closing bell with liz claman. liz: buffett and bill gates have a good time teasing each other. but buffett used to be 52 billion, gates was 56 billion. everybody has pared back just a bit. speaking of paring back, the euro versus the dollar, the euro has scaled back its gains but still at this level, $1.30 is getting more and more pricy to go visit europe. anybody in the euro zone there. but the dollar showing minor gains, some of this has to do with the fact that the bank of japan overnight did announce it would pull a central banker move. it's doing qe in its own

the entirely new lexus es. and the first-ever es hybrid. this is the pursuit of perfectio . >> i'm sharon epperson at the new york mercantile exchange. elow $3 a barrel and brent crude below $10 a barrel and we're talking for six-week low for brent crude prices and wti prices at the lowest level in more than a month as well and this has a lot to do with the bearish sentiment we've been telling you after the steep drop on monday. still, many theories out there about what caused it, but overall it just has led to a bearish sentiment among traders on the floor, and we also have gotten fundamental news that's rather bearish, a big build in supplies according to last night's data from the american petroleum institute and then, of course, the saudis saying they're pumping more aggressively to 10 million barrels per day. all of this is on the backdrop of what the white house may do. some speculate they will do at some point which is to perhaps release emergency reserves from the strategic petroleum reserve. right now the energy department is out with its weekly number on oil, gasoline and fuel supplies and we are looking at a huge, huge buil