This helps sketch why derivatives for stocks should not be legally tradeable. The stock isn't supposed to be an investment vehicle, but a tool for steering the

This helps sketch why derivatives for stocks should not be legally tradeable. The stock isn't supposed to be an investment vehicle, but a tool for steering the owned corporation. Indeed, this entire situation is analogous to the economics of running a GameStop-like trading post, where preorders are allowed. The store wants to sell lots of preorders in order to stay afloat even outside of release seasons, and customers want to purchase preorders in order to guarantee a low price for hyped releases. This is just like the original purpose of derivatives, which were to ensure that foodstuffs would be fairly priced for both farmers and grocers, even when prepaying for not-yet-grown crops. One would hope that GameStop would not sell preorders that it cannot guarantee from game publishers; if a game publisher promises only 100 copies to a particular brick-and-mortar, then they would be in big trouble if they took 140 preorders. Now, folks generally agree that GameStop's business model is on the way out. The stock should not be worth much, because there is not much to say about the future of the corporation, and so not much point in participating in corporate governance. But instead, it is overly-shorted, with about 140% of shares sold short. That is no longer in the spirit of derivatives, but is now a magic trick. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameStop_short_squeeze https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameStop_short_squeeze