>But there's a material difference between "attempting, in good faith, to determine what the demand for a commodity will be in the future, and buying based on that" and "attempting to determine what the price of a commodity on the futures market will be and buying based on that".
These are indistinguishable. Unless you want to restrict markets to being only between suppliers and consumers, there will always be middlemen attempting to predict the price, and since they need to eat, they will be attempting to profit from changes in price.
Which is fine because suppliers and consumers are many times willing to let others handle the risks of price changes (volatility), hence the market for futures.
These are indistinguishable. Unless you want to restrict markets to being only between suppliers and consumers, there will always be middlemen attempting to predict the price, and since they need to eat, they will be attempting to profit from changes in price.
Which is fine because suppliers and consumers are many times willing to let others handle the risks of price changes (volatility), hence the market for futures.