Archive for April, 2009

PUBLIC STANDARDIZED TRANSACTIONS

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

A private transaction is not generally reported in the news or to any price-reporting service. Forward contracts are private contracts. Just as in most legal contracts, the parties do not publicly report that they have engaged in a contract. In contrast, a futures transaction is reported to the futures exchange, ...

A BRIEF HISTORY OF FUTURES MARKETS

Saturday, April 25th, 2009

Although vestiges of futures markets appear in the Japanese rice markets of the 18th century and perhaps even earlier, the mid-1800s marked the first clear origins of modem futures markets. For example, in the United States in the 1840s, Chicago was becoming a major transportation and distribution center for agricultural ...