Re:Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record...
by 8note on Sunday August 16, 2026 @11:27AM
(#49320963)
the point of a system is what it does. if the futures market lets a bank make money off bread, thats the point of it
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Re:Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record...
by WillAdams on Sunday August 16, 2026 @05:42PM
(#49324001)
That was certainly not the intention nor goal of the folks who first set up a futures market for flour in Chicago at the beginning of the previous century.
Re:Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record...
by ben_w on Monday August 17, 2026 @02:32AM
(#49327166)
The profit to be made on futures trading is there to supply the capital needed to fund the benefit to the people selling those futures, i.e the farmers.
Accurately and fairly pricing risk is a whole field in its own right, one whose surface I have only lightly touched upon in my life by learning of actuaries and Black-Scholes. Free lunches don't tend to last long in finance, which means all profit margins everywhere, from share dividends and growth, to tresury bonds, to futures, to mortgages, tend to similar risk-adjusted real return.