Swap

While futures and options address the risks of future price changes, swaps engage the risks of future flows of wealth. The difference is not complete, for expected yields can be priced, but the emphasis is critically different. Yields invoke both the contingencies of on-going ownership of assets and their performances, and therein lies a richness of the ‘social’ not captured in relations of one-off exchange. Moreover, the focus on flows, rather than rational decision-making under uncertainty, opens an approach to a network that values time, historical data and volatility. It can track the way agents decide and how they relate, not just what trading decisions they register on the network.