Bailout

Box-office futures start their very short life

By Felix Salmon

The CFTC has approved trading in film futures. This means almost nothing. A handful of contracts will trade in the next few weeks, but once the financial regulatory reform bill is signed into law, all such trading will come to an end. The opponents of box-office futures never really thought that the CFTC would change its mind and prevent these futures from trading, so they went over the CFTC’s head to Congress. Which is determined to make sure this market never takes off.

So enjoy these futures while they last. It won’t be long until they’re no more than a footnote in film-finance history.

Full post as published by Macroprudential on June 15, 2010 (boomark / email).