This is about none of that. You can read this or get back to that.
You used to could count on the future. Well, maybe not count on it, but bet on it, for sure.
Among the futures you used to coulda counted on betting on were the future prices of frozen pork bellies in the great trading exchanges of Chicago. But things change.
Take a break from the end of whatever's ending this week to mark the end of a legendary pit.
This past week, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange announced that frozen pork bellies would no longer be traded. Some welcomed the closing of the belly pit, while others, notably Gary Wilhelmi, a futures reporter who told the Hoosier Ag Today tales of the belly's glory days.
The Belly pit has a long and illustrious history and, according to Wilhelmi, helped make the CME what it is today, "When bellies started in 1961, the CME was an egg and butter market. Pork bellies really saved the CME." Unlike other trading pits, the belly market was full of colorful characters. The traders would often dress in outlandish clothes, and Wilhelmi says it was a unique place to be, "It was a pit of individuals not commercial traders." He said it was a very closed group of long-time traders who did not welcome outsiders. It was also a very rough place to be as the market was very volatile, often moving up and down the daily limit in a single trading session. Wilhelmi told HAT about one trader who had a heart attack and died during one of these wild sessions.
When the belly pit opened, pork processors would hold the bulk of their bellies (source of the most beautiful thing on earth: bacon) through the winter and thaw them out in the summer when demand went up for millions of BLTs.
No, really. That Ralph Bellamy schtick where Eddie Murphy breaks the fourth wall in Trading Places? Not a bad intro to commodities futures trading.
And the belly was the daddy of them all. A reasonably predictable gamble based on known factors, the belly was seen as a hedge against inflation in the 1970s. As a futures contract the average person could understand, it predated, and perhaps encouraged, a whole universe of futures trades in financial and other markets. That no one understands.
Belly volume peaked in the 1980s, and it's continual decline has made the market ever more volatile since. What's more, the world of pork processing has changed, with packers hosting porkers the year 'round, for fresher bellies and better bacon.
Thus, lights out in the belly exchange. A sad ending for one of the financial worlds oddest--and funniest--investments.
The words "pork bellies" has been a dependable joke setup nearly my whole life. Comedians everywhere will surely be mourning the loss of such an inherently comic phrase.
"How's bellies this year?"
"They carry mainly bellies."
"Belly man. Got his first million in 'em."
Name an occupation funnier, on its face, than "pork belly purveyor."
I suppose it's just I'm getting older and the passing of anything seems an imposition, but I'm sad to see the belly pit go.