Earlier this week, Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler clarified that no matter what you might have assumed back in 1983, Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy) and Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) did not commit insider trading when they made millions trading on orange juice futures in the movie Trading Places. As you may recall, Billy Ray and Winthrop intercepted a confidential Department of Agriculture "crop report" on orange crop forecasts, and used it to successfully sell short and corner the orange juice futures market before the report was publicly announced (and to simultaneously ruin the Duke brothers, who lost $394 million based on a false copy of the report).

In a speech on Wednesday, Gensler reiterated the CFTC's position that the insider trading laws in the securities world should be expanded to the futures world, making it illegal to trade on non-public information from agencies like the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve and Department of Agriculture. Gensler cited "Trading Places" to explain why such an expansion of the law should occur, saying the CFTC wants to implement an "Eddie Murphy" rule. In real life, he said, Billy Ray and Winthrop's trading based on "misappropriated government information is actually not illegal under our statute."

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