Financial Times (March 27)
“The price of cocoa surged past $10,000 a tonne for the first time on Tuesday, as a dizzying rise in prices caused by poor harvests in Africa accelerates. Cocoa futures traded as high as $10,080 in New York, more than double their price only two months ago, as traders warned a global shortage of cocoa beans would herald higher price tags for chocolate bars.”
Tags: Africa, Chocolate bars, Cocoa, Dizzying, Double, Futures, Higher, New York, Poor harvests, Price, Shortage, Surged, Traders
New York Times (March 23)
“Investors in the futures market had expected the Fed to cut rates up to six times this year, but have recently come around to the central bank’s view that only three cuts are more likely. It hasn’t seemed to matter for the stock market’s barnstorming rally.”
Tags: Central bank, Fed, Futures, Investors, Rally, Rates, Stock market, Three cuts
Crain’s Chicago Business (May 4)
CME’s last commodity trading pits “shut over a year ago because of COVID-19, and the exchange announced today that they won’t reopen.” CME “had already closed floor trading for most futures contracts in Chicago and New York in 2015 as open outcry had fallen to just 1% of total volumes. The options pits in Chicago, with history stretching back 173 years, were the exchange’s last bastion for old-school commodities floor traders.”
Tags: Chicago, CME, Commodity trading, COVID-19, Exchange, Futures, New York, Open outcry, Options pits
Institutional Investor (January 31)
“Bitcoin’s wild price swings have investors wondering how to short the digital currency, as there would be a lot of money to be made in the latest craze in investing.” Alas, this isn’t so easy. Though Bitcoin futures trade openly, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is charging “an initial margin of 47 percent of the futures’ value owing to the volatile nature of Bitcoin.”
Tags: Bitcoin, CME, Craze, Digital currency, Futures, Investing, Investors, Margin, Price Swings, Short, Volatile, Wild
Institutional Investor (October Issue)
“Atsushi Saito has reinvigorated the Japanese exchange world with a merger and a technology overhaul. Now comes the hard part: winning back market share in Asia.” Following the merger of the Tokyo and Osaka exchanges, the Japan Exchange Group ranks third behind only the NYSE Euronext and Nasdaq OMX. “JPX now controls more than 90 percent of all equity-and derivatives-trading volume in Japan.” Yet, “despite its lead in listed companies, JPX trails in foreign listings. It’s also weak in terms of options, futures contracts and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), compared with the big U.S. exchanges”
Tags: Asia, Atsushi Saito, Derivatives, Equities, ETFs, Futures, IT, Japan, JPX, Market share, Merger, Nasdaq OMX, NYSE Euronext, Options, Osaka, Tokyo, Trading volume, U.S.
Chicago Tribune (July 19)
“The Chicago-based futures industry needs to better protect its clients.” Unlike banks (backed by the FDIC) or brokers (backed by the SIPC), the futures industry lacks a backstop to protect customer accounts. Last year MF Global went bankrupt, with customers losing up to $1.6 billion of their own supposedly safely segregated funds. More recently, Peregrine Financial Group went bankrupt. Customer funds are again missing. “There is no substitute for a well-capitalized insurance fund covering customer accounts…. The industry’s version of the FDIC and SIPC needs to be put in place soon — before the next firm goes belly up and takes its customers’ money with it.”
