Speculation

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1914 billboard criticizing speculation on land, which cites Henry George Everybody works but the vacant lot (cropped).jpg
1914 billboard criticizing speculation on land, which cites Henry George

In finance, speculation is the purchase of an asset (a commodity, goods, or real estate) with the hope that it will become more valuable shortly. It can also refer to short sales in which the speculator hopes for a decline in value.

Contents

Many speculators pay little attention to the fundamental value of a security and instead focus purely on price movements. [1] [ citation needed ] In principle, speculation can involve any tradable good or financial instrument. Speculators are particularly common in the markets for stocks, bonds, commodity futures, currencies, cryptocurrency, fine art, collectibles, real estate, and financial derivatives.

Speculators play one of four primary roles in financial markets, along with hedgers, who engage in transactions to offset some other pre-existing risk, arbitrageurs who seek to profit from situations where fungible instruments trade at different prices in different market segments, and investors who seek profit through long-term ownership of an instrument's underlying attributes.

History

With the appearance of the stock ticker machine in 1867, which removed the need for traders to be physically present on the stock exchange floor, stock speculation underwent a dramatic expansion through the end of the 1920s. The number of shareholders increased, perhaps, from 4.4 million in 1900 to 26 million in 1932. [2]

Speculation vs. investment

The view of what distinguishes investment from speculation and speculation from excessive speculation varies widely among pundits, legislators and academics. Some sources note that speculation is simply a higher-risk form of investment. Others define speculation more narrowly as positions not characterized as hedging. [3] The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission defines a speculator as "a trader who does not hedge, but who trades with the objective of achieving profits through the successful anticipation of price movements". [4] The agency emphasizes that speculators serve important market functions, but defines excessive speculation as harmful to the proper functioning of futures markets. [5]

According to Benjamin Graham in The Intelligent Investor , the prototypical defensive investor is "one interested chiefly in safety plus freedom from bother". He adds that "some speculation is necessary and unavoidable, for, in many common-stock situations, there are substantial possibilities of both profit and loss, and the risks therein must be assumed by someone." Thus, many long-term investors, even those who buy and hold for decades, may be classified as speculators, excepting only the rare few who are primarily motivated by income or safety of principal and not eventually selling at a profit. [6]

Economic benefits

Sustainable consumption level

Speculation usually involves more risks than investment. Philippine-stock-market-board.jpg
Speculation usually involves more risks than investment.

Nicholas Kaldor [7] has long argued for the price-stabilizing role of speculators, who tend to even out "price-fluctuations due to changes in the conditions of demand or supply", by possessing "better than average foresight". This view was later echoed by the speculator Victor Niederhoffer, in "The Speculator as Hero", [8] who describes the benefits of speculation:

Let's consider some of the principles that explain the causes of shortages and surpluses and the role of speculators. When a harvest is too small to satisfy consumption at its normal rate, speculators come in, hoping to profit from the scarcity by buying. Their purchases raise the price, thereby checking consumption so that the smaller supply will last longer. Producers encouraged by the high price further lessen the shortage by growing or importing to reduce the shortage. On the other side, when the price is higher than the speculators think the facts warrant, they sell. This reduces prices, encouraging consumption and exports and helping to reduce the surplus.

Another service provided by speculators to a market is that by risking their own capital in the hope of profit, they add liquidity to the market and make it easier or even possible for others to offset risk, including those who may be classified as hedgers and arbitrageurs.

Market liquidity and efficiency

If any market, such as pork bellies, had no speculators, only producers (hog farmers) and consumers (butchers, etc.) would participate. With fewer players in the market, there would be a larger spread between the current bid and the asking price of pork bellies. Any new entrant in the market who wanted to trade pork bellies would be forced to accept this illiquid market and might trade at market prices with large bid–ask spreads or even face difficulty finding a co-party to buy or sell to.

By contrast, a commodity speculator may profit from the difference in the spread and, in competition with other speculators, reduce the spread. Some schools of thought argue that speculators increase the liquidity in a market, and therefore promote an efficient market. [9] This efficiency is difficult to achieve without speculators. Speculators take information and speculate on how it affects prices, producers and consumers, who may want to hedge their risks, needing counterparties if they could find each other without markets it certainly would happen as it would be cheaper. A very beneficial by-product of speculation for the economy is price discovery.

On the other hand, as more speculators participate in a market, underlying real demand and supply can diminish compared to trading volume, and prices may become distorted. [9]

Bearing risks

Speculators perform a risk-bearing role that can be beneficial to society. For example, a farmer might consider planting corn on unused farmland. However, he might not want to do so because he is concerned that the price might fall too far by harvest time. By selling his crop in advance at a fixed price to a speculator, he can now hedge the price risk and plant the corn. Thus, speculators can increase production through their willingness to take on risk (not at the loss of profit).

Finding environmental and other risks

Speculative hedge funds that do fundamental analysis "are far more likely than other investors to try to identify a firm's off-balance-sheet exposures" including "environmental or social liabilities present in a market or company but not explicitly accounted for in traditional numeric valuation or mainstream investor analysis". Hence, they make the prices better reflect the true quality of operation of the firms. [10]

Shorting

Shorting may act as a "canary in a coal mine" to stop unsustainable practices earlier and thus reduce damages and form market bubbles. [10]

Economic disadvantages

Winner's curse

Auctions are a method of squeezing out speculators from a transaction, but they may have their own perverse effects by the winner's curse. The winner's curse is, however, not very significant to markets with high liquidity for both buyers and sellers, as the auction for selling the product and the auction for buying the product occur simultaneously, and the two prices are separated only by a relatively small spread. That mechanism prevents the winner's curse phenomenon from causing mispricing to any degree greater than the spread.

Economic bubbles

Speculation is often associated with economic bubbles. [11] A bubble occurs when the price for an asset exceeds its intrinsic value by a significant margin, [12] although not all bubbles occur due to speculation. [13] Speculative bubbles are characterized by rapid market expansion driven by word-of-mouth feedback loops, as initial rises in asset price attract new buyers and generate further inflation. [14] The growth of the bubble is followed by a precipitous collapse fueled by the same phenomenon. [12] [15] Speculative bubbles are essentially social epidemics whose contagion is mediated by the structure of the market. [15] Some economists link asset price movements within a bubble to fundamental economic factors such as cash flows and discount rates. [16]

In 1936, John Maynard Keynes wrote: "Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the situation is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. (1936:159)" [17] Keynes himself enjoyed speculation to the fullest, running an early precursor of a hedge fund. As the Bursar of the Cambridge University King's College, he managed two investment funds, one of which, called Chest Fund, invested not only in the then 'emerging' market US stocks, but to a smaller extent periodically included commodity futures and foreign currencies (see Chua and Woodward, 1983). His fund was profitable almost every year, averaging 13% per year, even during the Great Depression, thanks to very modern investment strategies, which included inter-market diversification (it invested in stocks, commodities and currencies) as well as shorting (selling borrowed stocks or futures to profit from falling prices), which Keynes advocated among the principles of successful investment in his 1933 report: "a balanced investment position... and if possible, opposed risks". [18]

It is controversial whether the presence of speculators increases or decreases short-term volatility in a market. Their provision of capital and information may help stabilize prices closer to their true values. On the other hand, crowd behavior and positive feedback loops in market participants may also increase volatility.

Government responses and regulation

The economic disadvantages of speculation have resulted in a number of attempts over the years to introduce regulations and restrictions to try to limit or reduce the impact of speculators. States often enact such financial regulation in response to a crisis. Note for example the Bubble Act 1720, which the British government passed at the height of the South Sea Bubble to try to stop speculation in such schemes. It remained in place for over a hundred years until repealed in 1825. The Glass–Steagall Act passed in 1933 during the Great Depression in the United States provides another example; most of the Glass-Steagall provisions were repealed during the 1980s and 1990s. The Onion Futures Act bans the trading of futures contracts on onions in the United States, after speculators successfully cornered the market in the mid-1950s; it remains in effect as of 2021.

The Soviet Union regarded any form of private trade with the intent of gaining profit as speculation (Russian : спекуляция) and a criminal offense and punished speculators accordingly with fines, imprisonment, confiscation and/or corrective labor. Speculation was specifically defined in article 154 of the Penal Code of the USSR. [19]

Food security

Some nations have moved to limit foreign ownership of cropland to ensure that food is available for local consumption, while others have leased food land abroad despite receiving aid from the World Food Programme. [20]

In 1935, the Indian government passed a law allowing the government partial restriction and direct control of food production (Defence of India Act, 1935). It included the ability to restrict or ban the trading in derivatives on food commodities. After achieving independence in 1947, India in the 1950s continued to struggle with feeding its population and the government increasingly restricted trading in food commodities. Just at the time the Forward Markets Commission was established in 1953, the government felt that derivative markets increased speculation, which led to increased food costs and price instabilities. In 1953 it finally prohibited options- and futures-trading altogether. [21] The restrictions were not lifted until the 1980s.

Regulations

In the United States, following passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has proposed regulations aimed at limiting speculation in futures markets by instituting position limits. The CFTC offers three basic elements for their regulatory framework: "the size (or levels) of the limits themselves; the exemptions from the limits (for example, hedged positions) and; the policy on aggregating accounts for purposes of applying the limits". [22] The proposed position limits would apply to 28 physical commodities traded in various exchanges across the US. [23]

Another part of the Dodd-Frank Act established the Volcker Rule, which deals with speculative investments of banks that do not benefit their customers. Passed on 21 January 2010, it states that those investments played a key role in the 2007–2008 financial crisis. [24]

Proposals

Proposals made in the past to try to limit speculation – but never enacted – included:

See also

Related Research Articles

In finance, a derivative is a contract that derives its value from the performance of an underlying entity. This underlying entity can be an asset, index, currency, or interest rate, and is often simply called the underlying. Derivatives can be used for a number of purposes, including insuring against price movements (hedging), increasing exposure to price movements for speculation, or getting access to otherwise hard-to-trade assets or markets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Commodity market</span> Physical or virtual transactions of buying and selling involving raw or primary commodities

A commodity market is a market that trades in the primary economic sector rather than manufactured products, such as cocoa, fruit and sugar. Hard commodities are mined, such as gold and oil. Futures contracts are the oldest way of investing in commodities. Commodity markets can include physical trading and derivatives trading using spot prices, forwards, futures, and options on futures. Farmers have used a simple form of derivative trading in the commodities market for centuries for price risk management.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Contango</span> Situation when futures prices are above the expected spot price at maturity

Contango is a situation in which the futures price of a commodity is higher than the expected spot price of the contract at maturity. In a contango situation, arbitrageurs or speculators are "willing to pay more [now] for a commodity [to be received] at some point in the future than the actual expected price of the commodity [at that future point]. This may be due to people's desire to pay a premium to have the commodity in the future rather than paying the costs of storage and carry costs of buying the commodity today." On the other side of the trade, hedgers are happy to sell futures contracts and accept the higher-than-expected returns. A contango market is also known as a normal market or carrying-cost market.

Investment is traditionally defined as the "commitment of resources to achieve later benefits". If an investment involves money, then it can be defined as a "commitment of money to receive more money later". From a broader viewpoint, an investment can be defined as "to tailor the pattern of expenditure and receipt of resources to optimise the desirable patterns of these flows". When expenditures and receipts are defined in terms of money, then the net monetary receipt in a time period is termed cash flow, while money received in a series of several time periods is termed cash flow stream.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Short (finance)</span> Practice of selling securities or other financial instruments that are not currently owned

In finance, being short in an asset means investing in such a way that the investor will profit if the market value of the asset falls. This is the opposite of the more common long position, where the investor will profit if the market value of the asset rises. An investor that sells an asset short is, as to that asset, a short seller.

In finance, a futures contract is a standardized legal contract to buy or sell something at a predetermined price for delivery at a specified time in the future, between parties not yet known to each other. The asset transacted is usually a commodity or financial instrument. The predetermined price of the contract is known as the forward price or delivery price. The specified time in the future when delivery and payment occur is known as the delivery date. Because it derives its value from the value of the underlying asset, a futures contract is a derivative.

In finance, a forward contract, or simply a forward, is a non-standardized contract between two parties to buy or sell an asset at a specified future time at a price agreed on in the contract, making it a type of derivative instrument. The party agreeing to buy the underlying asset in the future assumes a long position, and the party agreeing to sell the asset in the future assumes a short position. The price agreed upon is called the delivery price, which is equal to the forward price at the time the contract is entered into.

A futures exchange or futures market is a central financial exchange where people can trade standardized futures contracts defined by the exchange. Futures contracts are derivatives contracts to buy or sell specific quantities of a commodity or financial instrument at a specified price with delivery set at a specified time in the future. Futures exchanges provide physical or electronic trading venues, details of standardized contracts, market and price data, clearing houses, exchange self-regulations, margin mechanisms, settlement procedures, delivery times, delivery procedures and other services to foster trading in futures contracts. Futures exchanges can be integrated under the same brand name or organization with other types of exchanges, such as stock markets, options markets, and bond markets. Futures exchanges can be organized as non-profit member-owned organizations or as for-profit organizations. Non-profit, member-owned futures exchanges benefit their members, who earn commissions and revenue acting as brokers or market makers; they are privately owned. For-profit futures exchanges earn most of their revenue from trading and clearing fees, and are often public corporations.

A hedge is an investment position intended to offset potential losses or gains that may be incurred by a companion investment. A hedge can be constructed from many types of financial instruments, including stocks, exchange-traded funds, insurance, forward contracts, swaps, options, gambles, many types of over-the-counter and derivative products, and futures contracts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Foreign exchange market</span> Global decentralized trading of international currencies

The foreign exchange market is a global decentralized or over-the-counter (OTC) market for the trading of currencies. This market determines foreign exchange rates for every currency. It includes all aspects of buying, selling and exchanging currencies at current or determined prices. In terms of trading volume, it is by far the largest market in the world, followed by the credit market.

In finance, a contract for difference (CFD) is a financial agreement between two parties, commonly referred to as the "buyer" and the "seller." The contract stipulates that the buyer will pay the seller the difference between the current value of an asset and its value at the time the contract was initiated. If the asset's price increases from the opening to the closing of the contract, the seller compensates the buyer for the increase, which constitutes the buyer's profit. Conversely, if the asset's price decreases, the buyer compensates the seller, resulting in a profit for the seller.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stock trader</span> Person or company involved in trading equity securities

A stock trader or equity trader or share trader, also called a stock investor, is a person or company involved in trading equity securities and attempting to profit from the purchase and sale of those securities. Stock traders may be an investor, agent, hedger, arbitrageur, speculator, or stockbroker. Such equity trading in large publicly traded companies may be through a stock exchange. Stock shares in smaller public companies may be bought and sold in over-the-counter (OTC) markets or in some instances in equity crowdfunding platforms.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to finance:

A commodity broker is a firm or an individual who executes orders to buy or sell commodity contracts on behalf of the clients and charges them a commission. A firm or individual who trades for his own account is called a trader. Commodity contracts include futures, options, and similar financial derivatives. Clients who trade commodity contracts are either hedgers using the derivatives markets to manage risk, or speculators who are willing to assume that risk from hedgers in hopes of a profit.

Amaranth Advisors LLC was an American multi-strategy hedge fund founded by Nicholas M. Maounis and headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut. At its peak, the firm had up to $9.2 billion in assets under management before collapsing in September 2006, after losing in excess of $6 billion on natural gas futures. Amaranth Advisors collapse is one of the biggest hedge fund collapses in history and at the time (2006) largest known trading losses.

Retail foreign exchange trading is a small segment of the larger foreign exchange market where individuals speculate on the exchange rate between different currencies. This segment has developed with the advent of dedicated electronic trading platforms and the internet, which allows individuals to access the global currency markets. As of 2016, it was reported that retail foreign exchange trading represented 5.5% of the whole foreign exchange market.

A foreign exchange derivative is a financial derivative whose payoff depends on the foreign exchange rates of two currencies. These instruments are commonly used for currency speculation and arbitrage or for hedging foreign exchange risk.

A commodity trading advisor (CTA) is US financial regulatory term for an individual or organization who is retained by a fund or individual client to provide advice and services related to trading in futures contracts, commodity options and/or swaps. They are responsible for the trading within managed futures accounts. The definition of CTA may also apply to investment advisors for hedge funds and private funds including mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in certain cases. CTAs are generally regulated by the United States federal government through registration with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and membership of the National Futures Association (NFA).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Securities market participants (United States)</span>

Securities market participants in the United States include corporations and governments issuing securities, persons and corporations buying and selling a security, the broker-dealers and exchanges which facilitate such trading, banks which safe keep assets, and regulators who monitor the markets' activities. Investors buy and sell through broker-dealers and have their assets retained by either their executing broker-dealer, a custodian bank or a prime broker. These transactions take place in the environment of equity and equity options exchanges, regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), or derivative exchanges, regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). For transactions involving stocks and bonds, transfer agents assure that the ownership in each transaction is properly assigned to and held on behalf of each investor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sharia and securities trading</span>

Sharia and securities trading is the impact of conventional financial markets activity for those following the islamic religion and particularly sharia law. Sharia practices ban riba and involvement in haram. It also forbids gambling (maisir) and excessive risk. This, however has not stopped some in Islamic finance industry from using some of these instruments and activities, but their permissibility is a subject of "heated debate" within the religion.

References

  1. ↑ Taylor, Mark P.; Allen, Helen (1992-06-01). "The use of technical analysis in the foreign exchange market". Journal of International Money and Finance. 11 (3): 304–314. doi:10.1016/0261-5606(92)90048-3. ISSN   0261-5606.
  2. ↑ Stäheli 2013 , p.  4.
  3. ↑ Szado, Edward (2011). "Defining Speculation: The First Step toward a Rational Dialogue". The Journal of Alternative Investments. 14. CAIA Association: 75–82. doi:10.3905/jai.2011.14.1.075. S2CID   154097642.
  4. ↑ "CFTC Glossary: A guide to the language of the futures industry". cftc.gov. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Archived from the original on 18 August 2012. Retrieved 28 August 2012.
  5. ↑ "Staff Report on Commodity Swap Dealers & Index Traders with Commission Recommendations" (PDF). U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. 2008. Retrieved 27 August 2012.
  6. ↑ Graham, Benjamin (1973). The Intelligent Investor. HarperCollins Books. ISBN   0-06-055566-1.
  7. ↑ Nicholas Kaldor, 1960. Essays on Economic Stability and Growth. Illinois: The Free Press of Glencoe.
  8. ↑ Victor Niederhoffer, The Wall Street Journal, 10 February 1989 Daily Speculations
  9. 1 2 Heckinger, Richard (August 2013). "Derivatives Overview" (PDF). Understanding Derivatives: Markets and Infrastructure (Revised ed.). Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 October 2022.
  10. 1 2 Unlikely heroes - Can hedge funds save the world? One pundit thinks so, The Economist, 16 February 2010
  11. ↑ Teeter, Preston; Sandberg, Jorgen (2017). "Cracking the enigma of asset bubbles with narratives". Strategic Organization. 15 (1): 91–99. doi:10.1177/1476127016629880. S2CID   156163200.
  12. 1 2 Hollander, Barbara Gottfried (2011). Booms, Bubbles, & Busts (The Global Marketplace). Heinemann Library. pp. 40–41. ISBN   978-1432954772.
  13. ↑ Lei, Noussair & Plott 2001 , p. 831: "In a setting in which speculation is not possible, bubbles and crashes are observed. The results suggest that the departures from fundamental values are not caused by the lack of common knowledge of rationality leading to speculation, but rather by behavior that itself exhibits elements of irrationality."
  14. ↑ Rosser, J. Barkley (2000). From Catastrophe to Chaos: A General Theory of Economic Discontinuities: Mathematics, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, and Finance. Springer. p. 107. ISBN   9780792377702.
  15. 1 2 Shiller, Robert J. (23 July 2012). "Bubbles without Markets" . Retrieved 29 August 2012.
  16. ↑ Siegel, Journal (2003). "What Is an Asset Price Bubble? An Operation Definition" (PDF). European Financial Management. 9 (1): 11–24. doi:10.1111/1468-036x.00206. S2CID   154819558.
  17. ↑ Dr. Stephen Spratt of Intelligence Capital (September 2006). "A Sterling Solution". Stamp Out Poverty report. Stamp Out Poverty Campaign. p. 15. Retrieved 2 January 2010.
  18. ↑ Chua, J. H.; Woodward, R. S. (1983). "The Investment Wizardry of J. M. Keynes". Financial Analysts Journal. 39 (3): 35–37. doi:10.2469/faj.v39.n3.35. JSTOR   4478643.
  19. ↑ "Статья 154. Спекуляция ЗАКОН РСФСР от 27-10-60 ОБ УТВЕРЖДЕНИИ УГОЛОВНОГО КОДЕКСА РСФСР (вместе с УГОЛОВНЫМ КОДЕКСОМ РСФСР)". zakonbase.ru. Retrieved 2020-05-02.
  20. ↑ Compare: Valente, Marcela. "Curbing foreign ownership of farmland." IPS, 22 May 2011. "The governments of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay are drafting laws to curb acquisition by foreigners of extensive tracts of their fertile agricultural land. [...] China, Egypt, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, India, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are all buying or leasing fertile land in other countries where food is not always abundant, the Grain report says.
    The study says Cambodia, which receives aid from the World Food Programme, has leased rice fields to Qatar and Kuwait, while Uganda has granted concessions on its wheat and maize fields to Egypt, and interested parties from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are making approaches to the Philippines."
  21. ↑ Frida Youssef (October 2000). "Integrated report on Commodity Exchanges And Forward Market Commission (FMC)". FMC. Archived from the original on 2012-03-03. Retrieved 2012-09-05.
  22. ↑ "Speculative Limits". U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Retrieved 21 August 2012.
  23. ↑ "CFTC Approves Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Regarding Regulations on Aggregation for Position Limits for Futures and Swaps". U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Retrieved 21 August 2012.
  24. ↑ David Cho and Binyamin Appelbaum (22 January 2010). "Obama's 'Volcker Rule' shifts power away from Geithner". The Washington Post . Retrieved 13 February 2010.
  25. ↑ Evans-Pritchard, Ambrose (26 May 2008). "Germany in call for ban on oil speculation". The Daily Telegraph . Archived from the original on 28 May 2008. Retrieved 28 May 2008.

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