KANSAS EXCHANGE HITS CFTC POSITION LIMIT PLAN The Kansas City Board of Trade, KCBT, has asked federal futures regulators to modify a proposal to raise the Chicago Board of Trade's, CBT, speculative position limits on wheat futures contracts, saying the plan would put the the Kansas exchange "at a serious competitive disadvantage." The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, CFTC, last month proposed raising CBT wheat speculative limits to 1,200 contracts all months net from 600 contracts, and to 900 contracts for any single month from 600 contracts. At the same time, CFTC proposed leaving KCBT's wheat speculative position limits unchanged. "Higher limits for CBT wheat than for KCBT wheat would significantly impair the KCBT's ability to compete with the CBT for speculative interest," Michael Braude, president of the Kansas exchange, said in a letter to CFTC. A CFTC spokesman said the commission took into account open interest affected by existing speculative limits in proposing to raise CBT's limits. KCBT said the CFTC proposal would reduce hedging efficiency, constrain growth of intermarket spreading and of the exchange's wheat options contract and impair its ability to attract large speculators. The Kansas City exchange asked the commission to amend its proposal to change the limits for KCBT wheat to the exact same bushel amount as specified for CBT wheat. CFTC will consider public comments on the proposal until June 3.