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As expected, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved Cantor Fitzgerald’s acquisition to offer movie contracts on box office office performance. Cantor wanted to begin the program with The Expendables, the Sylvester Stallone-directed action film that opens August 13. Given that the future looks dismal for the Cantor Fitzgerald program and a rival service by Media Derivatives (which got CFTC approval. first), Cantor Fitzgerald has told the LA Times it won’t go forward because of the ban on the programs that was approved by Congress and is part of financial reform legislation that’s expected to be signed into law. The bill’s retroactive so there’s no chance of squeezing in on a grandfathering technicality. The only chance is getting the courts to overturn it, something Media Derivatives is considering. Both have said they were crushed by the MPAA’s lobbying might.
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No “over-under” here. The wording in the bill was changed to make it, if passed, retroactive by June 1. If the bill becomes law there’ll be no box-office futures trading at least on US soil. Cantor, of course, operates Cantor Index out of the UK where they’ve taken spread bets on movie for probably 5 years now. Cantor, at least, could trade them there subject to the approval of that country’s FSA, which itself is begin reorganized.
Rich Jaycobs, Cantor Exchange’s president, announced that it was throwing in the towel – abandoning its efforts to trade BO futures.
That’s my 2 posts.
As a former commodities trader and founder of one of the first big financial websites, let me just say this is a bad idea. I don’t understand why the CFTC has given the go ahead for this market as it strikes me as incredibly risky. We will soon have college kids trying to place bets on the next big fad. The commodities markets exist to help producers hedge their bets and lock in the price of the underlying at a certain price. Speculators allow the markets to function efficiently (most of the time). I understand how studios might want to be able to lock in a return which isn’t a bad idea but it’s the fanboys betting their life savings on the next Star Wars that concerns me. This market belongs in Vegas, not on the exchanges. If it does come into being, I’d suggest shorting the expendables if consensus comes in at more than a $25 million opening.
the brokers will make money and keep it. the investors will make money until they lose money.
I, for one, am disappointed. I was looking forward to this. The crap Hollywood has been peddling has been of no use to me of late and this would have given me the opportunity to make some money of the public’s inexorable willingness to feed a film industry which deserves to flounder for its lack of vision and business sense.