On October 22, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission, at their first-ever joint open meeting, approved (1) a joint final rule to lower the margin requirement for an unhedged security futures position from 20 percent to 15 percent, which was approved over the dissents of Commissioners Lee and Crenshaw of the SEC; and (2) the issuance of a joint request for comment on the portfolio margining of uncleared swaps and non-cleared security-based swaps.

The CFTC press release and access to the Federal Register releases are available here. The SEC press release is available here.