To be honest I ignored the whole topic until today. But in my opinion the rationale is obvious: you buy a stock, that means you provide that company with liqui

To be honest I ignored the whole topic until today. But in my opinion the rationale is obvious: you buy a stock, that means you provide that company with liquidity that they can use to operate and grow their business. I guess especially in the startup scene VCs and investors are in high regard since they believe in the future value and perhaps also the product of a company. Example: imagine I'm a hedge fund and put so much money into company x that the stock moves up. The company probably thinks I gonna fund their business for a few years (remember, stocks are long-term investments). Stock rises, they do a few risky choices. Suddenly I pull back my money. That would suck. I think options and futures have reasonable functions, especially to stabilize investments and raw material purchase. But speculation can easily get unreasonable, you basically speculate with the liquidity/credit of other companies that actually care what they do. The irony is that futures have been invented to stabilize food production, I think since almost 1000 years. But probably you don't want a large hedge fund play with this stuff. Also to put on another perspective. People are crazy about fairness on markets, even the super free US market has strict cartel laws. On the other hand large funds like Blackrock are so large, they have government-like powers. They even have the power to decide whether companies should stay or steer away from coal energy. That's even worse than a monopoly. https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/investment-giant-blackrock-marks-a-major-milestone-in-coal-divestment-movement-56669181 https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights...