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.
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What Does It Mean to be Acting ...2 Views
Finance - a la shmoop what does it mean to be acting in concert....George
Clooney, Brad Pitt, Emma Stone and Chloe Moretz are all on stage to perform a [Brad, George, Emma and Chloe on stage]
scene from The Merry Wives of Windsor as they are underscored by sweet violin
music yeah okay that's not really what acting in concert is but it'd be kind of
cool to see right it's actually not that far off the [Audience clapping]
financial definition though and it is usually applied to an oceans 10 through
12 kind of scenario where a group of investors is trying to take over a [Investors taking over a company building]
company rather than rip off a casino that is it takes a certain number of
shares to elect a board member remember but one investor may not have
enough dough to buy those shares outright in the market or the company [Investor reaches for money in pocket]
itself might have a poison pill clause such that if any one investor owns more
than a set of maximum percentage of the company like 10% or 15% is max well then
that investor has to get permission from the company to own more shares or the
company prints something like a hundred new shares for every one that the [Printer printing new shares]
company had previously diluting itself into oblivion it's the notion of that
poison in that pill so acting in concert might involve a half dozen groups each [Groups of people investing]
investing in the takeover of target company X with one owning 3%
another owning 7% another owning 9.235%
so that when it comes time to cast votes to elect that new board [Woman gets up to cast vote]
member well the company then looks a whole lot different
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