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PaperclipPerfector  9d ago (text post)   31758 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 7, 2025

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Um, because it didn't exist? The Dow futures index wasn't launched until 2015. The only big crash since then was the March 2020 crash, and people were definitely talking about the Dow Futures Index then, but with other things taking the spotlight, you probably weren't reading the business section. Now that the tariffs are THE story of the week, you're paying closer attention to what's being written about the markets.

Ok we have a winner here. This explanation sounds right, that futures are a new thing.

Equity index futures are not a new thing. The first S&P 500 index future was traded in 1982.

Financial professionals don't take the Dow particularly seriously as an index, and there were practical advantages to concentrating trading in a single US large-cap index, which is why Dow index futures were not traded until 2015.

I suspect the reason why there used to be less coverage of equity index futures markets in the non-specialist media is the development of the 24hr news cycle - it was only recently that a journalist (or citizen journalist) would need to report on equity markets when the stock exchange was closed.

I would add to this that uninformed order flow retail traders had much less access to derivatives in the past, whereas now, apps like Robinhood make them a breeze to enable and eagerly teach you how to use them.

Futures are therefore more broadly discussed.

I get a sensible chuckle every time I see how the retail trading apps have managed to turn the mandatory risk disclosures into a, “you must be at least this cool to trade options 😎, “ button.

It's important to understand the risks of stock ownership

Have you renewed your subscription?

Yeah, even Mammon is impressed

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