the.com/futures
the only contract where you bet on a thing you'll never touch.
means Financial contracts obligating you to buy or sell an asset at a set price on a future date, traded on exchanges and used for hedging or speculation.
from From the Latin futurus, 'about to be,' the future participle of esse, 'to be' — the same root behind 'future' itself. The financial sense grew from 'future delivery' contracts, where the goods (grain, cattle, oil) change hands later, not now; over time traders clipped the phrase down to just 'futures,' a plural noun for promises about tomorrow. The standardized exchange-traded version is often traced to 19th-century commodity markets like Chicago's grain pits, though informal forward agreements are far older.
- origin
- Rice traders in 1700s Japan invented modern futures markets
- the catch
- Most contracts settle in cash, not actual goods
- famous fail
- Trader once nearly took delivery of millions of oranges
- oil shock
- Crude futures went negative in April 2020
- the leverage
- Tiny margin controls enormous positions, magnifying gains and ruin
chicago mercantile exchange — largest futures exchange in the world, founded 1898, trades agricultural and financial contracts
iceman cometh — o'neill play 1946, title refers to hickey's prediction about the future arriving
back to the future — 1985 film where marty mcfly travels to 2015, the iconic futures-focused movie