Futures Market Explained

Futures Market Explained

A three dollar box of corn cereal stays at roughly the same price day-to-day and week-to-week but corn prices can change daily sometimes by a few cents sometimes by a lot more why does the cost of processed foods generally stay quite stable even though the crops that go into them have prices that fluctuate it's partly thanks to the futures market the futures market allows the people who sell and buy large quantities of corn to insulate you the consumer from those changes without going out of business themselves let's meet our corn producer this farmer of course she is always looking to sell her corn at a high price and on the other side our corn user this cereal company is always looking to buy corn at a low price now the farmer has a little bit of a problem because her whole crop gets harvested at once lots and lots of farmers will be harvesting at the same time and the huge supply can send the price falling and even though that price might be appealing to the company that makes cereal from corn it doesn't want to purchase all of its corn at once because among other reasons it would have to pay to store it but it's fortunate that corn can be stored because that means it can be sold and bought throughout the year and this is where the futures market fits in buyers and sellers move bushels around in the market though actual corn rarely changes hands instead of buying and selling corn the farmer and cereal maker buy and sell contracts now we're getting closer to peace of mind for both sides because a futures contract provides a hedge against a change in the price this way neither side is stuck with only whatever the market price is when they want to buy or sell these contracts can be made at any time even before the farmer plants the corn she'll use the futures market to sell some of her anticipated crop on a certain date in the future of course she's not going to sell all of her corn on that contract just enough corn to reassure her that a low price at harvest won't ruin her business the contract provides that security the cereal company uses the same market to buy bushels their contract protects against a high price later contracts will gain or lose money in the futures market if the price goes high the farmer loses money on that futures contract because she's stuck with it but that's okay because now she can sell the rest of her corn what wasn't in that contract at the higher price that offsets her loss in the futures market if at harvest time the price of corn is low well that's exactly why she entered the futures market the low price means her contract makes money so that profit shields her from the sting of the low price she'll get for the bushels she sells now the corn cereal company doesn't like those higher prices and that's why they have a futures contract they make money on it and can use that profit to cover the higher price of the corn they now need to buy the futures market serves as a risk management tool it doesn't maximize profit instead it focuses on balance and in this way it keeps your cereal from breaking your weekly shopping budget

DevCorner: Open (Game Art) Bundle

An interesting mixture to "pay what you want" and "ransom funding" has recently surfaced with the Open Bundle:



You can buy all the offered game art and use them under the CC-by license and if the total threshold is reached (10k, 1 day remaining, 9.3k already pledged) all the game art (2d sprites and music) will be officially released under the CC0. A split of the funds is btw. shared with the EFF and Creative Commons.

For those wondering: no, it is not done by our friends of OpenGameArt.org, but they think it is a good project anyways. Interestingly the creator is also thinking of expanding the idea:

Do you want to host your own "public domain ransom"?
I'd love to help you! Email me at nick@commonly.cc

P.S.: While we are on last day notices: Today ends the registration period for the Unvanquished summer tournament. Also check out their latest Alpha 17.

DevCorner: Liberate some great Blender game art!

UPDATE: First set of files has been released (license CC0) and on my advise he added some stretch goals:

• 600$ > 3 game ready Enemies! (models, sfx, animations, effects)

• 650$ > Dynamic optimized lighting system! (rich dynamic lighting with low resource usage )

• 750$ > 4 new weapons!(model, texture, sound)

• 850$ > Triple the amount of the actual props! (interactive objects,explosibles, new walls, doors windows etc.)

• 900$ > New player model (model, textures)

Currently it is standing at 530$ and there are 22 days to go, so chances are we will see some more nice stuff out of this.
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Way too many closed-source game projects never see the light of the day, and their code and assets are forever lost. Now at least one developer thought he could at least make a few bucks by liberating this content under the CC0 license:





There is some seriously nice stuff in that pack, and the 500 US $ he is asking for on his indigogo page is a bargain for it.

At the time of writing this, 200$ have been already pledged, so with your contribution it should be easy going to reach the goal. Update: 515$ contributed, thanks to everyone! Maybe the guy should think about strechgoals ;)

But I sure wish more developers of failed projects would release their assets like this.