It might sound like an irrational dedication to fantasy. But it really has to do with commodities trading.
In commodities, an "actual" is the physical thing getting traded. Oil, gold, soybeans, pork bellies, etc. However, not all commodities trading involves buying and selling actuals. Much of the action takes place on the derivatives market, where traders speculate in the prices of various commodities, but have no intention of ever receiving, say 1,000 barrels of oil or a bunch of pig meat.
"Against Actual" is a type of trade that avoids the physical delivery. In the transaction, two parties with opposite positions in a commodity make a deal to use each other to close out their contracts simultaneously. A person with a buy-side contract and one with a sell-side contract let the two cancel each other out. That way, no one has to ship any pork to anyone else.
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Finance: What is Acting Against Recommen...2 Views
finance a la shmoop what is acting against recommendations hmm
let's say you head to the emergency room with stomach pains the doctor in charge [Man driving fast with stomach pains]
says yep you've got appendicitis but I'm brutally
tired so I recommend you go home well odds are if the doc himself had [Doctor in pain with stomach pains]
appendicitis he'd get someone to take that puppy out stat acting against
recommendations is kind of like that just in the financial world if your
broker tells you to do something he wouldn't recommend for his own [Man discussing finance with his broker]
investments well he has a duty to tell you that he wouldn't do that same thing
in his own case that usually happens when some bonehead tells a broker, hey I
want to bet my life savings on this new IPO well why would anyone act against
recommendations well in the case of the doc maybe he's so tired that he's a [Doctor holding scalpel and falls to the floor]
dangerous menace in the O.R... In the case of your broker well maybe there's
something about your specific situation that makes acting against recommendation
the way to go well as long as they tell you that it's against recommendations
well, they're legally in the cure just don't ask that broker to perform
your kidney transplant [Broker walks into office]
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