On Jul 14, 7:02*pm, "catalpa" <cata...[at]entertab.org> wrote:
[snip]
- quote -


Yes, much of what you say is standardly accepted. But is it not true
that in today's hedge-fund world:

a) the speculators (hedge funds, investment bankers, bankers, etc.)
over-leveraged in unprecedented amounts
b) with financial instruments not available to individuals (many
"derivatives" contracts are custom-made)
c) used money other than their own, garnering obscene fees for
themselves
d) then when trades went against them, expect the rest of the world to
bail them out
e) and created unprecedented chaos across many financial markets?

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"CIL" <Get_bacon[at]pork.org> wrote in message
news:aKNek.20507$%q.13855[at]newsfe24.lga...
- quote -

In the futures markets speculators normally do not take delivery, but
speculators can well take delivery or deal in the cash market of any
commodity. The Hunt brothers did this with silver in the late 1970's. In the
stock and bond markets it is the norm for speculators to possess stocks and
bonds.

Speculators are necessary for any normal price based market to function as
they are key to providing liquidity. To see what a market is like without
active speculators just look at some of the illiquid pink sheets stocks
where the bid/offer spreads are wide enough to drive an tandem 18 wheeler
through sideways and a stock may not trade for weeks.

Speculators make a ripe target for people who don't know better and don't
want to do the mental work to understand supply/demand and fear/greed in the
marketplace. Note that there are plenty of speculators who lose money. In
particular, in the futures makets it is a distinct minority of speculators
that make significant profits and the vast majority are losers.

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On Jul 14, 1:10*pm, "CIL" <Get_ba...[at]pork.org> wrote:
- quote -


A speculator is the current convenient scapegoat. I doubt that many
of our politicians know what they mean by the term. I would assume
they mean people who buys and sells future contracts. I guess our
politicians don't have too much faith in our free market system.

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This may not and probably is not the correct group for this, but I hope the
moderator will let it through for the group.

In the current market situation, a lot of folks are attempting to blame
"Speculators" for price fluctuations.

In my feeble attempt to make sense of this; is a "Speculator" anyone that
does not take procession at the end of a contract and it makes no difference
if it is pork bellies, orange juice, or oil. Am I missing something or is
this it in a nutshell?

thanks cil

I really enjoy this group

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