AGRICULTURE
REPORT - Commodity Futures Markets
By Mario Ritter
This is Steve Ember with the VOA Special English
Agriculture Report.
Consider the life of a crop farmer. One year, the
growing conditions are excellent. The farmer has a huge crop. But so
do the other farmers. When they all sell their crops, prices go down.
Next year, conditions are poor. Prices go up. But
the farmers have less to sell.
These are the risks when farmers take a crop to market
at harvest time. With supply highest, prices are lowest. And there is
always the danger of a bad harvest.
To control risk, farmers may use commodity contracts.
These are agreements to buy or sell a product for a set price within
a period of time. Commodity contracts represent financial protection
against changes in price.
In the eighteen-hundreds, progress in transportation
and communications permitted new markets to be built and linked. The
Chicago Board of Trade（芝加哥交易所）is one of the oldest of these markets.
It opened in 1848.
At first, farmers received immediate payment as crops
arrived at the market by horse or train. Soon, people recognized a better
system: Guarantee the price of goods that would arrive in the future.
Traders called these guarantees forward contracts. A farmer could buy
a contract and know exactly how much money to expect.
By 1865, the Chicago Board of Trade set rules for
trade in futures（期货）. Futures are contracts
that rarely involve anything real, except money. Farmers still sell
their crops at harvest time. Market forces still set the prices. But
farmers can use futures to protect themselves if they sell at a loss.
The contracts pay the difference between the price they hoped for and
the price they received.
Farmers are not the only ones who trade in futures.
Companies buy futures to guarantee costs for materials.
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange（芝加哥商业交易所）is
the biggest commodities market in the United States. Traders sell futures
for agricultural and energy products, valuable metals -- even weather.
A futures market could not operate without another
kind of trader. Speculators（投机者）try to
guess the direction of commodity prices to make a profit.
Speculators can cause big changes in the price of
futures. But the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in Washington
says research suggests they do not affect the price of goods. This federal
agency says money from speculators helps provide the kind of continuous
activity that is part of a healthy market.
This VOA Special English Agriculture Report was written
by Mario Ritter. This is Steve Ember.
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