The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday announced settled charges against U.S. Oil Fund (USO) and its general partner U.S. Commodity Funds (USCF) regarding misleading statements. USCF additionally settled a parallel case with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and will pay a total penalty of $2.5 million.
According to the SEC’s order, USO—an exchange-traded product (ETP)—received record investor inflows during April 2020, when the onset of lockdown measures as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic shook up the oil market. During the month, USO’s sole futures broker told the company it would not execute any new oil futures positions for USO.
