Emergence/History of Derivatives
The history of derivatives is so vast and is interesting to know that derivatives dated back to 16th century. Like forward delivery contracts, where the asset is to be delivered on specific date and time for an agreed fixed rate existed in the ancient Greek and Rome times, where the emperors of that time entered into these kind of contracts to overcome the foreseen problems, like falling short of grains required at the times of masses. Interestingly they worked out and thus gave a pavement to the new way of trading between farmers and merchants. Due to the uncertainty of prices and supply merchants started entering into the futures contracts with the farmers which was termed as “to-arrive” contract which allowed trader and farmer to trade with lock – in price. This made sense as it was safe for both the farmers and traders, from the farmer’s point of view Continue reading