Overview

In The Futures, Emily Lambert, senior writer at Forbes magazine, tells us the rich and dramatic history of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade, which together comprised the original, most bustling futures market in the world. She details the emergence of the futures business as a kind of meeting place for gamblers and farmers and its subsequent transformation into a sophisticated electronic market where contracts are traded at lightning-fast speeds. Lambert also details the disastrous effects of Wall Street's adoption of the futures contract without the rules and close-knit social bonds that had made trading it in Chicago work so well. Ultimately Lambert argues that the futures markets are the real ""free"" markets and that speculators, far from being mere parasites, can serve a vital economic and social function given the right architecture. The traditional futures market, she explains, because of its written and cultural limits, can serve as a useful example for how markets ought to work and become a tonic for our current financial ills.

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9780465018437

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Reviews

Wall Street Journal In The Futures , Emily Lambert addresses the subject with as much affection as is ever likely to be stirred by the pork-belly business. She's a believer: 'With futures, traders were more than gamblers. Gamblers created risk to bet on. They threw dice that didn't have to be thrown. But in the futures business, men bet on risks that already existed. The corn crop could fail'. . . . [P]icaresque tales enliven what could have been a dry subject. Kirkus [Lambert] devotes loving attention to a parade of outrageous risk-takers. . . . Although she provides lucid explanations of how the market works and how the various money-making strategies collide, the charm of her fast-paced, informal history comes from the book's animating insight: 'Finance is like biology: Everything is intertwined.' For the general reader, a full-blooded introduction to an arcane world. Booklist [A] colorful history... Lambert, a senior writer for Forbes magazine, keeps the story moving with a surprising litany of legendary traders you probably never heard of until now. Library Journal Lambert includes numerous colorful anecdotes about the exchanges and their traders, also touching briefly on the 2008 financial crisis. VERDICT: For readers interested in the Chicago exchanges' history, Lambert's book will be satisfying. Frank Partnoy, author of The Match King Most people know about the derivatives that nearly brought down the financial system. Less known, but even more intriguing, are the futures and options traded on exchanges, especially in Chicago. The Futures is a window into that market and its gripping history, with rough-and-tumble locker room trading floors, loud colorful characters, rumpled shirts, cigars, and - most important - lots of money. The book is a front row seat on a massive gambling operation that has been surprisingly stable for a century and a half, and remains closely connected to the very real worlds of farming and

<p> Wall Street Journal<br> In The Futures, Emily Lambert addresses the subject with as much affection as is ever likely to be stirred by the pork-belly business. She's a believer: 'With futures, traders were more than gamblers. Gamblers created risk to bet on. They threw dice that didn't have to be thrown. But in the futures business, men bet on risks that already existed. The corn crop could fail'. . . . [P]icaresque tales enliven what could have been a dry subject. Kirkus<br> [Lambert] devotes loving attention to a parade of outrageous risk-takers. . . . Although she provides lucid explanations of how the market works and how the various money-making strategies collide, the charm of her fast-paced, informal history comes from the book's animating insight: 'Finance is like biology: Everything is intertwined.' For the general reader, a full-blooded introduction to an arcane world. Booklist <br> [A] colorful history... Lambert, a senior writer for Forbes magazine, keeps the st

Author Information

Emily Lambert is senior writer for Forbes magazine, where she covers finance and trading. She has also written for the New York Post. She lives in Chicago.

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