futures

A manipulative scheme that made unlawful profits on the price of crude oil was flagged in a complaint Tuesday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a sign that the regulator is cracking down on potential speculation in energy markets.

Among the questions investors now face: How much rally is left in cotton since skyrocketing 171% already in a year? Among the variables to consider are weather, demand and how much more land gets devoted to cotton. Analysts point to better and worse ways to play this commodity.

The fabled New York Stock Exchange isn't what it used to be. Today's NYSE Euronext has lost a huge volume of trading to upstart computerized exchanges in recent years, and scandals have tarnished its luster. Now, Germany's Deutsche Boerse wants to buy control of it. I say: "Sell!"

The investment world's love affair with ETFs continued in 2010, as more than 1,000 funds managed assets of $940 billion. Here's a review of the best and the worst performers, and a few reminders about how to use these investment vehicles safely.

A dismal jobs report Friday means federal interest rates are likely to stay low for some time. Interest-rate futures traders, who previously anticipated that the Fed would raise rates at the end of next year, now believe the Fed won't raise rates until mid-2012.

Index futures, index options, equity options and security futures are all set to expire Friday in a phenomenon known as the "quadruple witching" hour. It usually signals a time of higher trading volumes and surprises on Wall Street, but this time, investor uncertainty is likely to keep trades low.

I'll admit it right off the bat: I'm an investment idiot. Business culture and the financial universe vex me, and I'd likely struggle to tell you the difference between a hedge fund and a garden hedge. But pop culture? That I get better than most. And as a result I guessed, for instance. that...

Stock markets are closed for Good Friday, but in their short holiday sessions, the stock futures and bonds markets reacted positively to the news that 162,000 new jobs had been created in March.

Former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, a Democrat who was defeated in November by Chris Christie, hasn't been out of work for too long. The former Goldman Sachs chief is returning to Wall Street to run MF Global, a struggling brokerage house.

As the film world convenes this week at the ShoWest convention in Las Vegas, one of the hot topics is sure to be the box-office futures market. Come April, after expected approval by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, industry and regular folks will be able to purchase futures...