Futures are used for three purposes; hedging, speculating and arbitraging. This passage is only concerned with hedging, but it s

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问题     Futures are used for three purposes; hedging, speculating and arbitraging. This passage is only concerned with hedging, but it should be noted that speculators and arbitrageurs play a particularly important role in the market. It is largely the speculators who take on the risks that the hedgers seek to shed, while the arbitrageurs, by ensuring that futures prices constantly stay in line with other markets, give both hedgers and speculators the confidence that they are doing their deals at the right price.
    The volume of deals for arbitrage and speculation purposes is much higher than that for hedging purposes. This is similar to the foreign exchange markets, where it has been estimated that, the foreign exchange business needed in any one year for commerce and tourism is all done by 11 a.m. on 2, January, while the rest of the year is taken up with speculating and arbitraging.
    However, the purpose of the futures markets and what makes them different from a simple gambling ring in the eyes of the law, is to provide a service to those commercial enterprises which seek to hedge their risks. It is their money which drives much larger volume of other transactions and not the other way round.
    You might have expected, as is certainly the case in most other financial markets, that big institutions would be more ready and able than small individuals to shoulder the risks involved in dealing speculatively in futures. However, futures markets are exceptional in this regard. In contrast to other financial markets, which are dominated by big institutions, or at least by fairly sizeable firms, the lifeblood of a successful futures market is its "locals"—independent firms of only a few individuals trading for their own account. It is these quick-witted, aggressive and generally rather blunt-spoken individuals, viewed usually by outsiders with the utmost mistrust, who take the risks that others use the futures market to shed, and provide the markets with the liquidity without which they would he dead. The single reason why Chicago took off as a financial futures market where others lagged behind is that the CBOT and IMM already had a large pool of locals ready to turn their hand from soya beans to long bonds and provide the new contracts with risk-taking capacity.
According to the passage, the main purposes of futures contracts are ______.

选项 A、to hedge
B、to speculate
C、to arbitrage
D、all of the above

答案D

解析 文章第一段提到Futures are used...and arbitraging. 期货合同的主要目的有三个:保值、投机和套利。
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