Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!math.lsa.umich.edu!emv From: emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Futures markets for semiconductors ? Message-ID: Date: 2 Mar 90 04:12:23 GMT References: <4223@bayes.ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov> Sender: news@math.lsa.umich.edu Organization: University of Michigan Math Dept., Ann Arbor MI. Lines: 24 In-reply-to: hanson@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov's message of 2 Mar 90 01:40:55 GMT Robin Hanson talks about the possibility of creating a "stock-like market mechanism" for betting on future advances in technology. I find it curious that you can trade pork bellies, orange juice, oil, steel, wheat, and rice, but that there doesn't seem to be any publicly available futures market for "commodity" semiconductors. Memory chips have been described as "industrial rice", but there's no way that I can see in the modern marketplace to deal with them in ordinary commodity terms. I mean you can get a quote for Chicago May pork bellies but not for Tokyo 1 MB x 9 100ns SIMMs, and arguably these are similar enough in commodity terms that an open marketplace should be able to flourish. I don't know what the equivalent of a USDA Grade A stamp is on a memory chip, so there might be some 'perishability' questions. Give those program traders another market to work on -- they're using memory-intensive systems, let the programs figure out how to make the most amount of money so that they can buy more memory :-) --Ed Edward Vielmetti, U of Michigan math dept.