The Futures: The Rise of the Speculator and the Origins of the World's Biggest Markets - Hardcover

Lambert, Emily

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0465018432 ISBN 13: 9780465018437

Publisher: Basic Books, 2010

Synopsis

In The Futures, Emily Lambert, senior writer at Forbes magazine, tells us the rich and dramatic history of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade, which together comprised the original, most bustling futures market in the world. She details the emergence of the futures business as a kind of meeting place for gamblers and farmers and its subsequent transformation into a sophisticated electronic market where contracts are traded at lightning-fast speeds. Lambert also details the disastrous effects of Wall Street's adoption of the futures contract without the rules and close-knit social bonds that had made trading it in Chicago work so well. Ultimately Lambert argues that the futures markets are the real "free" markets and that speculators, far from being mere parasites, can serve a vital economic and social function given the right architecture. The traditional futures market, she explains, because of its written and cultural limits, can serve as a

About this title

About the Author

Emily Lambert is senior writer for Forbes magazine, where she covers finance and trading. She has also written for the New York Post and currently lives in Chicago.

Reviews

In the late 1800s, the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal was completed, creating the only shipping link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River system. As Chicago became a major trading hub, a group of businessmen formed an organization called the Chicago Board of Trade that would centralize the trading of wheat, corn, and other grains. To minimize the risk of fluctuating grain prices, farmers used the exchange to lock in a price for a promise to deliver the crop at a future date, and the futures contract was born. In 1898, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange opened to trade in perishables such as butter, eggs, and onions. Lambert tells the colorful history of these commodity markets, which were designed to hedge risk for farmers but became hotbeds for speculators, fast-deal makers, and shrewd manipulators. The chapters are organized chronologically by the commodities that were added to the “pits,” such as pork bellies, currencies, stock options, oil, and bonds. Lambert, a senior writer for Forbes magazine, keeps the story moving with a surprising litany of legendary traders you probably never heard of until now. --David Siegfried

Edition details

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0465018432
• ISBN 13: 9780465018437
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240