Moon For Sale

The final frontier of commerce - space - is attracting increasing attention. In the coming decades it's possible we might see the start of a galactic real estate boom. Or perhaps if you believe in the work done by Dennis Hope - a pioneer of space real estate. Although the issues are complex e.g. sovereignty, property rights, someday soon these issues could be a day to day fact of doing business out of this world. But as interesting as extraterrestrial real estate is, another potential boom area could be space-sourced commodities. In this documentary they talk about Helium-3 (a potential energy source), but already there is a company set up to investigate and mine asteroids. It's hard to say when the technology will exist to bring space commodities down to earth, but it's worth keeping an eye on as it would have clear implications for terrestrial commodity and financial markets. Indeed, the next big stock market sector could be something like space resources. In the mean time enjoy this documentary on moon commerce.

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Finance Documentaries: http://www.financedocumentaries.com/2013/05/moon-for-sale.html

Land Rush

This documentary combines economics, commodities, private equity and hedge funds, with industry and demographic trends. In other words this documentary looks at how a systematic rise in agricultural prices has made it a potentially profitable venture for investors with the capital and expertise to buy up large tracts of land in Africa and transform agricultural practices to global best practice. Of course there's always room for complications, conflict, and exploitation. These issues are important and worth noting and understanding, but the idea that advanced agricultural techniques be brought to Africa to improve crop yields should be a positive. There is certainly scope for this investment to positively impact on the local economy and to provide new opportunities for the locals - indeed partnerships promise mutual benefits - but this is not a given and probably requires a good policy and regulatory setting, as well as investors that approach it as a partnership and not just a way for a quick buck.

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Finance Documentaries: http://www.financedocumentaries.com/2013/04/land-rush.html

The LME - Europe's Last Open Outcry Trading Floor

This short documentary from the Wall Street Journal adds to a handful of videos on Finance Documentaries which look at the old way of trading - people interacting with people; as opposed to computers talking to computers. "In the first of a new series of training videos, Dow Jones Newswires' Andrea Hotter takes a look at the last bastion of open outcry trading in Europe and one of the few remaining in the world, the London Metal Exchange. Tracing its history from inception to current day, she examines the various ways to trade metals." The London Metals Exchange (LME) is one of the last modern exchanges that uses the old open outcry method of trading. The LME was sold to Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd in 2012. See also: Anatomy of a Trade - The NYBOT and LIFFE Documentary and especially see Floored - which details the life of a trader in the pit, and the transition to computer trading.

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Finance Documentaries: http://www.financedocumentaries.com/2013/02/the-lme-europes-last-open-outcry.html

The Food Speculator

This documentary from VPRO Tegenlicht examines the global commodities futures markets and aims to understand the role of speculation on food prices. The presenter raises a small pool of capital to trade agricultural commodities so he can gain a first hand understanding of the role of the speculator. He travels to Tunisia - a country where rising grain prices saw bread become unaffordable; which ultimately lead to an uprising and regime change, i.e. "the Arab spring". He also attends some futures trading industry symposiums to speak to the industry participants and travels to Chicago - home of the CBOT to find out what "good speculators" and "bad speculators" are. When you think about the key function of commodity futures markets, the main purpose is to help producers and buyers of commodities to manage price risk i.e. hedging. Speculators play a vital role of providing liquidity - in other words in order to conduct a futures trade to hedge crop output you need an active market that provides price discovery and low cost and timely trade execution. Interesting viewing, also note parts of the documentary are in Dutch with English subtitles. See also: Anatomy of a Trade - The NYBOT

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Finance Documentaries: http://www.financedocumentaries.com/2012/12/the-food-speculator.html