Futures Markets and Y2K

mark@unicorn.com
Fri, 19 Feb 1999 04:52:36 -0800 (PST)

Peter C. McCluskey [pcm@rahul.net] wrote:
>Oil futures and other futures contracts provide as good an estimate as any
>of the risks of major disruptions. The oil futures market is saying quite
>clearly that there is no problem.

The problem with trusting futures markets for predicting the future is that you implicitly assume they have all the neccesary information; if they don't, then their predictions are as useless as Clinton speeches.

>The only futures markets that indicate a
>problem are the short-term interest rate markets, which predict a 30 basis
>point rise in rates from September to December

Interesting CNN article on that one:

http://www.cnnfn.com/digitaljam/9902/18/y2k_pkg/

Apparently they're betting on large-scale bank runs too.

Also, I've read that there's at least one contract out there for more than a hundred tons of gold in December at around 30% more than current rates. That's a pretty big bet someone's making on gold price increases over the next few months. Don't have a URL handy.

Mark