The Role of Speculators in the Futures Markets

The book is about proving that these futures markets and the role of speculators, yes, they obviously get an economic return. But actually how important they are to well functioning markets. There were a virtually continuous string of efforts and bills introduced in the United States Congress to ban trading in grain futures markets from the 1880s all the way into the 1970s in the U.S. The most successful commodity futures contract that the Chicago Mercantile Exchange had at the time was their onion contract. It is still illegal in the US to trade futures on onions.