Bitcoin

Its this fundamental wrong that traders can sell something short which they dont own.
Imagine if i took 1000 sheep to market on a monday that i didnt own and crash the price?

That isn't how contracts work.

In a marketplace there are three kinds of people:

1. People who produce the product and need to sell it. These people want the highest possible price.

2. People who need to buy the stuff to use it to make something else/add value to it. These people want the lowest possible price.

3. People who neither produce nor consume the commodity but they do have money and can afford to speculate. Without the speculators neither of the above parties is really interested in doing business with the other. Speculators provide the liquidity that means a market can discover the price and people can hedge their bets or fix their price way into the future.

A market contract is a piece of paper that I will take delivery of OR provide a certain volume of a commodity of on a given date in the future. Each marketplace has a set of contract terms- for example, I am going from memory but a corn contract is in dollars and cents per bushel and the contract size is 2000 bushels or something that I think is what fits in a rail car or something. Now 2000 bushels at say $2 dollar a go is $4000- a lot of money. But for a lot less money, I can obtain a piece of paper that says I have or will need to have that same physical quantity at some date in the future.

In basic terms you can buy or sell a contract- even though you are not in category 1 or 2. However, you must buy or sell what you have and end with zero contracts before the contract term expires- otherwise you are either coughing up the commodity in question at the delivery point or someone is gonna be dropping off the stuff for you to pay the full $4000 for.

This is what makes it extremely dangerous- the leverage of the position you have means that for very small money you are controlling an asset worth thousands and a small nudge in price can have big consequences.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
So why do some countries ban hedge funds?
To attempt to add credibility to their own flailing fiat currency, mainly.
As others have stated a currency that's only backed by "institutions" is no less of an illusion that cryptocurrency

The main difference is that most serious traders actually recognise the illusion for what it is and play the game anyway, whereas the vast majority of citizens in the world allow themselves to "be controlled by the power of money" which is very sad
 
Poor chap, though.
I have taken the odd knock, myself, but not on bitcoin, so I can relate!

I live the other way, myself, I would rather my kids grew up with their feet well planted before I start giving them funny ideas!

But you can do crazy stuff with trading if you understand what all money really is.... that's why I laugh at the absurdity that "bitcoin is just pretend money for computer geeks", nothing could be more ironic!
Every country in the world is going bankrupt, but only a few know they are.
Eh ,going bankrupt?, think the tense is wrong, should be in the past not the current or future.
Name any country who's not cooking the books?
Who's ulimately going to pay, no the rich or the poor but middle incomes and SME's, the productive taxed to death.
(Sorry ,I don't do "class" society because like bear poo , even if its from grizzly ,black or polar, poo is poo.?)
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Eh ,going bankrupt?, think the tense is wrong, should be in the past not the current or future.
Name any country who's not cooking the books?
Who's ulimately going to pay, no the rich or the poor but middle incomes and SME's, the productive taxed to death.
(Sorry ,I don't do "class" society because like bear poo , even if its from grizzly ,black or polar, poo is poo.?)
It all comes back to the working man.
They're the twerps allowing it to happen in many respects, but that comment will land me in a lot of hot water on here.
Working a 40 hour week for "money" which will get them nowhere in life, too busy working to grow enough food to last their family a calendar year in many cases.
 

oil barron

Member
Location
Aberdeenshire
if commodity markets didn’t exist the wheat markets would have no liquidity and you would not be able to sell your wheat on any day you choose - you would have to find a specific buyer

those people you think should be hung make you significantly better off would you believe !

so when the music stops, do you load up the Stewart’s and take a couple of loads down to Canary wharf?
Someone can only provide liquidity if they have somewhere to tip wheat. Otherwise they are extracting money out of the system.
 
It all comes back to the working man.
They're the twerps allowing it to happen in many respects, but that comment will land me in a lot of hot water on here.
Working a 40 hour week for "money" which will get them nowhere in life, too busy working to grow enough food to last their family a calendar year in many cases.
Nothing wrong with being a working class man....?
He ain't worried about tomorrow, cause he's just made up his mind, lifes too short for burning bridges, take one day at a time....
The real problem is the lack of genuine leadership and ability for people to accept responsibility as collective responsibility will only fail if there is no individual responsibility.
 

Lazy-Farmer

Member
Mixed Farmer
So why do some countries ban hedge funds?

Hedging is not just buying stocks or options (borrowing/betting). It’s about limiting losses. Usually done by buying and selling at the same time.

If a stick is at 1000. You can hedge by putting a buy order with a stop loss at 900 and a limit at 1500. If you also put a sell order with a stop at 1100 and a limit at 500. In the art you should end up with 400 in your pocket either way.

This is overly simplistic but it gives the idea

Same reason you sell half your grain early and the rest later with the hope the price rises.
 

Lazy-Farmer

Member
Mixed Farmer
Eh ,going bankrupt?, think the tense is wrong, should be in the past not the current or future.
Name any country who's not cooking the books?
Who's ulimately going to pay, no the rich or the poor but middle incomes and SME's, the productive taxed to death.
(Sorry ,I don't do "class" society because like bear poo , even if its from grizzly ,black or polar, poo is poo.?)

It’s all just numbers on a screen!
 

Lazy-Farmer

Member
Mixed Farmer
so when the music stops, do you load up the Stewart’s and take a couple of loads down to Canary wharf?
Someone can only provide liquidity if they have somewhere to tip wheat. Otherwise they are extracting money out of the system.

Some of them do have a place for it. Some commodities traders do buy to send it wherever. Others buy it short term to hold the stock to be basically a middle man. Farmers do the same with cattle/sheep. Who hasn’t taken a punt at a few beasts or sheep and put them in the shed cos they were cheep and you thought it would change over time. Same deal. Same thing with the fert sales men. Granted you don’t need the banker strokers but without them things would be a lot more local unless the farmer in hull knows the guy in Brazil that wants a 1000t of wheat.
 

Exfarmer

Member
Location
Bury St Edmunds
Hedging is not just buying stocks or options (borrowing/betting). It’s about limiting losses. Usually done by buying and selling at the same time.

If a stick is at 1000. You can hedge by putting a buy order with a stop loss at 900 and a limit at 1500. If you also put a sell order with a stop at 1100 and a limit at 500. In the art you should end up with 400 in your pocket either way.

This is overly simplistic but it gives the idea

Same reason you sell half your grain early and the rest later with the hope the price rises.
Hedging and hedge funds are very different beasts.
hedge funds are set to make money out of any means, they are often single funded , ie, by one person’s or company ‘s wealth, with the shear aim of increasing it. Many do take investments from a multiple of sources but few if any attract money from traditional sources such as pension funds, as they seen as too speculative.
 

oil barron

Member
Location
Aberdeenshire
Some of them do have a place for it. Some commodities traders do buy to send it wherever. Others buy it short term to hold the stock to be basically a middle man. Farmers do the same with cattle/sheep. Who hasn’t taken a punt at a few beasts or sheep and put them in the shed cos they were cheep and you thought it would change over time. Same deal. Same thing with the fert sales men. Granted you don’t need the banker strokers but without them things would be a lot more local unless the farmer in hull knows the guy in Brazil that wants a 1000t of wheat.

absolutely. There are folks on here though that think people moving numbers around on a screen with no possibility of receiving physical goods that are adding liquidity to the market. The hole commodity trading is getting to be a bit of a scheme for bankers and the like. Oil shot up 20% on Friday based on a tweet from Trump. That’s all well and good but the reality is you will be lucky to get $15 for it at a pipeline loading station and that’s only if they are willing to take it. Every pipeline and tank in the country is full.
 
The markets are more volatile now that banks can't use client money to take positions due to new rules.
This means there are bigger spreads to play with whereas before like the banks you needed huge amounts of capital to bet on very small moves in the market.
Rule 1 always remember your broker is working on his behalf not yours no matter what he tells you.
Take oil for instance a few years ago when price was ludicrous Max Keiser on RT brought on a guy called Curry in February. Goldmine sachs were forecasting $200 a barrel by Xmas. Curry forecast $50. Curry was right.
In very recent days the ass fell out of the oil market because the sand rats are fighting with the Ruskies. G Sachs the vampire squid forecast oil at $10 a barrel from $22. I bought against them just as I sold against them on Currys' advice.
These guys just try to suck you in. If the market was transparent you would have seen that while they were trying to get people to sell I bet they were buyers against not only the market but their own clients. Seen it 100's of times in oil and potato futures.
Trade in Bitcoin just the same. Forecast $20000 a coin. Had bought at average $5000 sold at average $15000. Watched market get back to $5000 then bought back in. Oh woe, it fell to $4000 but hey ho having made $10000 in between they were crocodile tears. Went back up nicely. Now trade in Bitcoin futures as watched too many people get burnt with lost or mythical coin.
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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