from Hacker News

Water Futures to Start Trading Amid Growing Fears of Scarcity

by m1 on 12/7/20, 3:35 PM with 3 comments

• by explorigin on 12/7/20, 4:18 PM

  > The contracts, a first of their kind in the U.S., were announced in September as heat and wildfires ravaged the U.S. West Coast. They are meant to serve both as a hedge for California’s biggest water consumers against skyrocketing prices and a scarcity gauge for investors worldwide.

  What happens when Morgan Stanley buys up all the water futures in a region and sits on them long enough for prices to go up? When they did it with oil, and gas prices skyrocketed, people drove less. But drinking less water does not seem like a viable (or at least healthy) method to handle price manipulation.