Back to the Futures: Crashing Dirt Bikes, Chasing Cows, and Unraveling the Mystery of Commodity Futures Markets demystifies the concept of commodity markets for readers and explains their importance for the future. How much research did you undertake for this book, and how much time did it take to put it all together?

The book is the culmination of a lifetime of research on commodity futures markets. In all seriousness, I have been studying and researching commodity markets my entire adult life, starting as an undergraduate student at Iowa State University and all the way up to the present time. The actual book took about five years to write, edit, and publish.

What is a common misconception you feel people have about commodity trading?

The most common misperception is that trading in commodity futures markets by speculators is merely gambling, and unneeded gambling at that. This is a reflection of what economists call the “physical fallacy.” This is the belief that something traded must be a physical object, like a bushel of corn, in order for the trading to be socially useful. Economists have proven quite conclusively that trading in forward commitments to buy or sell physical commodities, which is what a commodity futures market is, can play an important role in a market economy by distributing price risk from those who don’t want to bear it to those that are willing to bear it.

What is one thing that you hope readers take away from Back to the Futures?

I hope that readers can take away a newfound appreciation for the importance of commodity futures markets to our modern market economy. These markets largely sit in the background of everyday life, but prices for some of the most important commodities to modern life, like corn, crude oil, and cattle are set in these poorly understood markets. This makes futures markets literally important to everyone.

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