Currency markets are pure trading cultures detached from production and consumption

Evidence

The foreign-exchange market in particular is dominated by short-term spot transactions, the buying and selling of currencies, rather than complex financial instruments. No production effort on the bank’s part is involved in regard to these currencies; when options, futures, and other derivative securities are traded, their value is calculated on the spot by traders themselves without recourse to production facilities. A large part of foreign exchange dealing is “speculation”—that is, the trading of assets with a view to gains from price changes and price differences. This also distinguishes foreign-exchange dealing from merchandise and services trading, which is oriented toward the transportation of goods from one location to another and their subsequent consumption at the end of a trading chain. Like other financial market transactions, foreign exchange transactions are second-order trading arrangements related to the first-order economy only very indirectly, through the profits that they generate or the effects that they have on the value of currencies. To mark the character of these arrangements as pure, or nonintermediary, trading cultures, we call them “cambist” markets. — Karin Knorr Cetina & Urs Bruegger, Global Microstructures, 38

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘cambist markets’ as cultures of pure, nonintermediary trading where value is calculated on the spot without production facilities.
• SEED: Angle for an essay: the ‘second-order economy’ idea — how speculation detached from production inverts the standard economic-sociology framing.
• XREF: connects to: Online trading culture deferred consumption and enjoyment to an indefinite future; Interbank currency traders form a global social system distinct from local exchange brokerages — Karin Knorr Cetina & Urs Bruegger, Global Microstructures: The Virtual…, 13; No statistics describe the international population of currency traders — Karin Knorr Cetina & Urs Bruegger, Global Microstructures: The Virtual…, 59

Related

• Interbank currency trading differs fundamentally from exchange brokerage by its round-the-clock continuity. (similarity 0.82)
• No statistics describe the international population of currency traders (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Interbank currency traders form a global social system distinct from local exchange brokerages #exemplifies (0.80) — Karin Knorr Cetina & Urs Bruegger, Global Microstructures, 13
• Online trading culture deferred consumption and enjoyment to an indefinite future #expands (0.78)