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required to be registered as a commodity trading adviser
(CTA). Petitioner applied for and, in 1986, obtained
registration as a CTA with the Commodity Futures Trading
Commission (CFTC). He also applied for and, in 1987,
obtained registration as a CTA with the National Futures
Association (NFA).
The NFA is an association responsible for regulating
the professional conduct and financial responsibility of
CTA's and others, including futures commissions merchants,
introducing brokers, and commodity pool operators. As part
of its regulatory activities the NFA conducts periodic
audits of its members and monitors their advertising and
sales practices.
Petitioner encountered two problems in 1988 with
respect to his manuscript. First, on October 3, 1988, the
WSJ changed the format of its Commodities Page by expanding
it to two pages with two lead stories. Petitioner believed
the new format would cause problems for his customers
because his manuscript was premised upon evaluating only
one lead article per day. Petitioner believed that readers
of the manuscript would become confused as to which, if
any, commodity they should trade on a particular day.
Second, on December 14, 1987, the NFA began a periodic
audit of petitioner, and on May 13, 1988, it issued an
audit report to petitioner. The audit report discussed
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