Futures Contract
Future contracts allow the price risk to be separated from the reliability risk by removing the former from the set of factors giving rise to opportunism. The governance structure supplied by the exchange authority effectively eliminates reliability risk from future trading. The seller of futures contracts incurs a liability not to the buyer, but to the clearing house, and likewise the buyer acquires an asset from the clearing house. The clearing house in effect guarantees all transactions. In addition, the exchange rules, especially regarding its members’ contract, severely limit their ability to behave opportunistically. Organized exchanges greatly reduce default and reliability risk from future contracts. This is achieved by transferring transactions over price risks from a personal to an impersonal market through standard form futures contracts traded in self-regulated market price. Future contracts are standard form contracts with only one negotiable term: price. The standardization of future contracts has significant Continue reading