Gary Gensler spent much of the past month fending off WallStreet's campaign to slow the move to electronic swaps trading. Sowhen the platforms went live last week, the top U.S. derivativesregulator wasn't going to let a government shutdown stop him frommonitoring its progress.

With most of the staff at the Commodity Futures TradingCommission's Washington headquarters on furlough, Gensler, in hisfinal months on the job, had to pick up the phone and call aroundto make sure the system was working. He pronounced himselfsatisfied.

“It was a very good start,” he said in an interview. “Though theCFTC is in darkness with the shutdown, we've been able to bringsome additional light to the marketplace.”