Back to commodity futures

Commodity futures has long been the subject of debate, ever since such trading was allowed in 2003. One section of the intelligentsia feels that such trading should be discontinued at least in essential commodities because it fans inflation, but others think a futures platform helps in efficient price discovery and is a tool to hedge risk. The recent suspension of futures trade in guar and soybean and a probe into futures trading in some other commodities has raised the debate again. Government officials, however, think neither should futures trading be allowed unchecked, nor should it be stopped without sufficient reason. A senior consumer department official explained why. He said people often lost money in commodity futures on account of their own bad decision-making and then blamed the entire market for this. It was, he added, the equivalent of having your pocket picked in a bar in Goa and blaming the entire club culture in the state.