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San Francisco Onion Futures Company

398 points · 179 comments · z-mach9

  1. Barbing · · focus · HN ↗
    > FAQ

    >Is this legal?

    >Yes, to the best of our knowledge. 7 U.S. Code § 13-1 prohibits "contract[s] for the sale of [...] onions for future delivery [...] on or subject to the rules of any board of trade in the United States." The San Francisco Onion Futures Company is not a board of trade, defined as an "organized exchange or other trading facility". We sell contracts privately to individual buyers, and do not operate any exchange or secondary market.

    Performance art against that law?

    Also November onions are an absolute steal compared to the adjacent months!

    1. hyperhello · · focus · HN ↗
      > The San Francisco Onion Futures Company is not a board of trade, defined as an "organized exchange or other trading facility".

      I hate to argue but then what would they define this as, if not an organized exchange or other trading facility?

      1. lq9AJ8yrfs · · focus · HN ↗
        Broker or dealer. Per the interwebs, a broker acts on behalf of another party, vs a dealer trades for themselves.

        As distinguished from an exchange, where the exchange intermediates and becomes a middle party "simultaneously" to both sides.

        The market dynamics are pretty different between broker dealers and exchanges. For instance a /ticker/ as a concept makes sense only with an exchange.

        The exchanges basically pick up only the contracts or goods with the most volume and standardized & predictable goods.

        To trade more exotic or niche things basically you have to find your own counterparty, versus the exchange acts as an "typical" buyer and seller to each side (assuming there is anyone there at all to participate on each side... giving rise to the concept of market makers who undertake to do just that, i.e., to be ready to trade either side at any time in a certain good).

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