Sometimes the market makers, knowing better than the rest of us of how many shorts are out there at what prices, will bid the price up just to clean out the overhang of shorts. What fun!
Sorry, jenny, but that's a straw man argument -- the only people who ever get squeezed are pure specs. Nothing wrong with being a spec (hell's bells, I am one), but the problems with these new indices haven't anything to do with specs, or squeezes, or asymmetry.
The principal problem is, purely and simply, that one side of these markets is going to go begging, absent huge spec long interest.
Fearless forecast: these markets will suffer the same fate as the old Tom Turkey futures (oh, you don't remember that mkt? Died in 1974.), and for the same reason: every turkey grower in the nation tried to use that mkt to hedge their production, but virtually NOBODY wanted the long side.
Gobble, gobble, and good-bye. Same deal here, although it will take a little longer to play out because the real estate mkt is so vast.
I'm not going anywhere. I'll be here to say, ''See? What did I say?'' in a year or two.
BTW, I'm not a croaker, not anti-futures at all. Futures markets (our oil-conspiracy crowd here notwithstanding) serve a vital purpose. However, that said, no futures market EVER has succeeded unless it serves/has served the needs of BOTH the producers and the users.
To paraphrase Clint Eastwood in ''The Enforcer'' -- these markets ain't makin' it.
Sometimes the market makers, knowing better than the rest of us of how many shorts are out there at what prices, will bid the price up just to clean out the overhang of shorts. What fun!
Say, you're just like Attention Surplus.
Why do people insist on pontificating regarding things about which they know little?