Washington (Platts)--12Nov2012/405 pm EST/2105 GMT

NYMEX parent CME Group has ordered Goldfinch Capital Management, a Houston-based hedge fund, to pay a $70,000 fine for violating CME-set position limits for natural gas futures trading, the exchange said Monday.

The fine against Goldfinch was one of three NYMEX announced Monday in connection with various violations in natural gas, gold and heating oil futures trading.

Goldfinch violated this limit on January 26 after it "mistakenly purchased ... 200 February 2012 natural gas futures, instead of 200 March 2012 natural gas futures," according to CME.

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Goldfinch realized the error and, within 50 seconds, placed an order to sell the 200 February 2012 natural gas futures "to bring itself in compliance with its conditional limit," CME said.

According to CME, the sell order was fully executed within two minutes and Goldfinch lost $580 on the trade. Goldfinch immediately notified the exchange of the violation, CME said.

Goldfinch settled without admitting or denying the rule violation, CME said.

This was Goldfinch's fourth position-limit violation within 24 months, according to CME.

--Anastasia Gnezditskaia, ana_gnezditskaia@platts.com
--Edited by Jason Lindquist, jason_lindquist@platts.com

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