I am bit tired so I had to reread the explanation on wikipedia twice, but do I get it correctly:
They acquired the absolute majority of onions in the state, acquired futures, then flooded the market with their onions (plus some other minor fakeouts), so the price plummeted and they could get a massive payout on the futures?
Why are onions so special for this, doesn't this apply to pretty much any commodity?
Yeah, I think it's just because it was actually like feasible for somebody at the time to buy all the onions in Chicago. Most commodity markets are too big for any one actor to do that, especially now that commodity markets are often global. You can't just like, buy every barrel of oil on earth. Too many.
Plus onions can be warehoused for several months (a year in the right conditions maybe?) so they won't spoil while you're executing your devious scheme.
I am bit tired so I had to reread the explanation on wikipedia twice, but do I get it correctly: They acquired the absolute majority of onions in the state, acquired futures, then flooded the market with their onions (plus some other minor fakeouts), so the price plummeted and they could get a massive payout on the futures?
Why are onions so special for this, doesn't this apply to pretty much any commodity?
Yeah, I think it's just because it was actually like feasible for somebody at the time to buy all the onions in Chicago. Most commodity markets are too big for any one actor to do that, especially now that commodity markets are often global. You can't just like, buy every barrel of oil on earth. Too many.
Plus onions can be warehoused for several months (a year in the right conditions maybe?) so they won't spoil while you're executing your devious scheme.