4 ms·

If there are 5 bananas in the entire world and people are still allowed to pretend and sell 500 bananas - you dont see how this is a problem? Have you actually

If there are 5 bananas in the entire world and people are still allowed to pretend and sell 500 bananas - you dont see how this is a problem? Have you actually thought this through?

kqr 6y ago
That is exactly how money and other derivatives works, and it's not, in general, a problem. If Bob has one of the five bananas but sells Alice a contract for delivery of 500 bananas and then can't make good on his promise, then Bob has screwed only himself, because now people know that Bob's bananas are only worth 0.002 of other people's bananas. Even if Bob finds another rare banana he won't be able to sell it for anywhere near it's true value. Critically, Bob has only devalued his own banana contracts. In the meantime, Alice has only the one banana she bought from Bob, and she spent all her savings on that banana, thinking she'd get 500 of them. But Alice is clever. She has a plan for making back her savings. Alice sells 10 bananas for future delivery to Cecil. Alice plants the one banana she bought from Bob. And sure enough, come delivery time, Alice picks the bananas from her tree and delivers them to Cecil. Cecil, in turn, sold 20 fruit salads for future delivery to other people -- that's how she afforded the banana contract from Alice. Two observations I want you to make: 1. The one bad actor screwed himself out of the market in no time at all. 2. The 22 good actors managed to allocate capital effectively where it would do the most good for everyone, and allowed entrepreneurs of very little means to start profitable businesses. Derivatives trading is very resource efficient and has made modern society possible. It has a few drawbacks but they are self-correcting. There are problems, but they are not with derivatives trading. Edit: And keep in mind that Bob's banana contracts are not worth anything compared to other people's bananas, but they are still not completely worthless. If Dave owes Erica 50 of Bob's banana contracts, Dave will find it easy to repay them: you can trade almost anything for a Bob banana contract.
OJFord 6y ago
You can absolutely sell 5 bananas 500 times. You can't have 500 net buys (i.e. someone is 'long 500 bananas', or 500 people 'long' 1, etc.), but sales, fine!
- Daho0n 6y ago
  >You can absolutely sell 5 bananas 500 times. But that is not the point. The point is you had 5 bananas to sell and 500 people who bought 1 banana each. Now all 500 monkeys wants its dinner so please deliver. If you can't it is fraud. The mental gymnastics in the stock market are insane. More shares have been sold than exists. That has nothing to do with the amount of times they were sold.
  - OJFord 6y ago
    If it's the same banana, that's fine. If it's supposed to be a different banana, that's the 'net buys' scenario I described and is not fine, that would indicate naked (which is illegal other than by MMs) short banana selling.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
the_mitsuhiko 6y ago
> If there are 5 bananas in the entire world and people are still allowed to pretend and sell 500 bananas - you dont see how this is a problem? That only becomes a problem if at settlement time there are not 500 bananas. Since you can plant them that's not much of an issue.

If there are 5 bananas in the entire world and people are still allowed to pretend and sell 500 bananas - you dont see how this is a problem? Have you actually thought this through?

kqr 6y ago

That is exactly how money and other derivatives works, and it's not, in general, a problem. If Bob has one of the five bananas but sells Alice a contract for delivery of 500 bananas and then can't make good on his promise, then Bob has screwed only himself, because now people know that Bob's bananas are only worth 0.002 of other people's bananas. Even if Bob finds another rare banana he won't be able to sell it for anywhere near it's true value. Critically, Bob has only devalued his own banana contracts. In the meantime, Alice has only the one banana she bought from Bob, and she spent all her savings on that banana, thinking she'd get 500 of them. But Alice is clever. She has a plan for making back her savings. Alice sells 10 bananas for future delivery to Cecil. Alice plants the one banana she bought from Bob. And sure enough, come delivery time, Alice picks the bananas from her tree and delivers them to Cecil. Cecil, in turn, sold 20 fruit salads for future delivery to other people -- that's how she afforded the banana contract from Alice. Two observations I want you to make: 1. The one bad actor screwed himself out of the market in no time at all. 2. The 22 good actors managed to allocate capital effectively where it would do the most good for everyone, and allowed entrepreneurs of very little means to start profitable businesses. Derivatives trading is very resource efficient and has made modern society possible. It has a few drawbacks but they are self-correcting. There are problems, but they are not with derivatives trading. Edit: And keep in mind that Bob's banana contracts are not worth anything compared to other people's bananas, but they are still not completely worthless. If Dave owes Erica 50 of Bob's banana contracts, Dave will find it easy to repay them: you can trade almost anything for a Bob banana contract.

OJFord 6y ago

You can absolutely sell 5 bananas 500 times. You can't have 500 net buys (i.e. someone is 'long 500 bananas', or 500 people 'long' 1, etc.), but sales, fine!

Daho0n 6y ago
>You can absolutely sell 5 bananas 500 times. But that is not the point. The point is you had 5 bananas to sell and 500 people who bought 1 banana each. Now all 500 monkeys wants its dinner so please deliver. If you can't it is fraud. The mental gymnastics in the stock market are insane. More shares have been sold than exists. That has nothing to do with the amount of times they were sold.
- OJFord 6y ago
  If it's the same banana, that's fine. If it's supposed to be a different banana, that's the 'net buys' scenario I described and is not fine, that would indicate naked (which is illegal other than by MMs) short banana selling.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

the_mitsuhiko 6y ago

> If there are 5 bananas in the entire world and people are still allowed to pretend and sell 500 bananas - you dont see how this is a problem? That only becomes a problem if at settlement time there are not 500 bananas. Since you can plant them that's not much of an issue.