Remember, the motivation for any trader entering into a futures agreement is to benefit financially, and for which the trader needs to have a directional view on the price of the underlying asset. Perhaps it is time we take up a practical example of a futures trade to demonstrate how this is done. Also, I guess we should move away from the Gold example and look into an example related to the stocks.
Today (15th Dec 2014) the management of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a leading Indian Software Company had an investors meet, wherein the TCS management announced that they are cautious about the revenue growth for the December Quarter. The markets do not like such cautious statements, especially from the company’s management. After the statement, the markets reacted to it and as we can see from the TCS’s spot market quote, the stock went down by over 3.6%. In the snapshot below, the price per share is highlighted in blue. Ignore the red highlight, we will discuss about it shortly.
Out of the 2,095 members of the 2020 Forbes World’s Billionaires list, 552 live in just ten cities. And for the sixth year in a row, more billionaires call New York City home than any other city in the world. This year 92 billionaires live in the Big Apple — as their primary residence — 8 more than a year ago. The richest person in New York City is Bloomberg LP founder and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who spent nearly $1 billion of his $48 billion fortune on a failed presidential campaign before dropping out in March to endorse Joe Biden. Other notable NYC billionaire residents include hip-hop superstar Jay-Z and Julia Koch, the widow of former Koch Industries magnate David Koch. The collective net worth of the city’s billionaires is $424 billion, down $45.7 billion from a year ago. China retains its title as the country with the most cities in the top 10, with Shenzhen moving up one spot to No. 7 and Shanghai and Beijing staying flat at No. 6 and No. 4, respectively. Hong Kong is once again the city with the second most billionaires in the world. These four cities are home to 228 billionaires. The Forbes World’s Billionaires list is a snapshot of wealth using stock prices and exchange rates from March 18, 2020. Some people become richer or poorer within days of publication. We list individuals rather than multigenerational families who share fortunes, though we include wealth belonging to a billionaire’s spouse and children if that person is the founder of the fortune. In some cases we list siblings or couples together if the ownership breakdown among them isn’t clear, but here an estimated net worth of $1 billion per person is needed to make the cut. We value a variety of assets, including private companies, real estate, art and more. We don’t pretend to know each billionaire’s private balance sheet (though some provide it). When documentation isn’t supplied or available, we discount fortunes. For daily updates of net worths, go to www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires.
The economist John Maynard Keynes famously called gold a “barbarous relic”, suggesting that its usefulness as money is an artifact of the past. In an era filled with cashless transactions and hundreds of cryptocurrencies, this statement seems truer today than in Keynes’ time.
However, gold also possesses elemental properties that has made it an ideal metal for money throughout history.
Sanat Kumar, a chemical engineer from Columbia University, broke down the periodic table to show why gold has been used as a monetary metal for thousands of years.
The Periodic Table
The periodic table organizes 118 elements in rows by increasing atomic number (periods) and columns (groups) with similar electron configurations.
Just as in today’s animation, let’s apply the process of elimination to the periodic table to see why gold is money:
Gases and Liquids Noble gases (such as argon and helium), as well as elements such as hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine and chlorine are gaseous at room temperature and standard pressure. Meanwhile, mercury and bromine are liquids. As a form of money, these are implausible and impractical.
Lanthanides and Actinides Next, lanthanides and actinides are both generally elements that can decay and become radioactive. If you were to carry these around in your pocket they could irradiate or poison you.
Alkali and Alkaline-Earth Metals Alkali and alkaline earth metals are located on the left-hand side of the periodic table, and are highly reactive at standard pressure and room temperature. Some can even burst into flames.
Transition, Post Transition Metals, and Metalloids There are about 30 elements that are solid, nonflammable, and nontoxic. For an element to be used as money it needs to be rare, but not too rare. Nickel and copper, for example, are found throughout the Earth’s crust in relative abundance.
Super Rare and Synthetic Elements Osmium only exists in the Earth’s crust from meteorites. Meanwhile, synthetic elements such as rutherfordium and nihonium must be created in a laboratory.
Once the above elements are eliminated, there are only five precious metals left: platinum, palladium, rhodium, silver and gold. People have used silver as money, but it tarnishes over time. Rhodium and palladium are more recent discoveries, with limited historical uses.
Platinum and gold are the remaining elements. Platinum’s extremely high melting point would require a furnace of the Gods to melt back in ancient times, making it impractical. This leaves us with gold. It melts at a lower temperature and is malleable, making it easy to work with.
Gold as Money
Gold does not dissipate into the atmosphere, it does not burst into flames, and it does not poison or irradiate the holder. It is rare enough to make it difficult to overproduce and malleable to mint into coins, bars, and bricks. Civilizations have consistently used gold as a material of value.
Perhaps modern societies would be well-served by looking at the properties of gold, to see why it has served as money for millennia, especially when someone’s wealth could disappear in a click.
