CHAPTER 1
Floors, Fields, and Famines
Greg O'Leary is walking the Chicago Board of Trade wheat pit near the close of a day's session in mid-December, 2010. Prices are up today. Egypt, the world's biggest wheat buyer, has bought 110,000 tons of hard-red winter wheat from the United States, which ships more of that crop than any other country. Jordan has bought another 150,000 tons. Exports have boomed since a summer drought pushed Russia, Egypt's main supplier, to slap an export ban on its harvest. That's driving North African and Arab nations to U.S. sellers to stave off food shortages and higher prices.
The day's most traded wheat contract, the one that requires delivery in March, ends the session up one-and-a-half cents, closing at $7.6475 ...
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