Futures and Options Markets: An Introduction

As the world economy has shifted toward globalization, the importance of futures and options markets has grown dramatically; in turn, these markets have evolved to better serve the increasingly global economy. However, even with the trading volume expanding every year, futures and options contracts and markets remain poorly understood. Carter's text introduces readers to this dynamic, exciting subject in an accessible and lively way. Using a perspective grounded in economics rather than complex mathematics, he presents an integrated explanation of the market institutions, theory, and empirical evidence. The text begins with the fundamentals of commodity futures and, unlike other texts, continues on to extensively discuss financial futures and options markets, including currencies and equity indexes. Geared to the novice reader, mathematics and formulas are kept to a minimum, while numerous real-world examples explain how practitioners use futures and options markets. Whether interested in business, economics, or agricultural and applied economics, readers will appreciate futures and options markets as a thriving laboratory for discovering economic theory in action.