A zero-sum game is a situation where if one side loses, the other side wins, and the net change in wealth is zero.
Zero-sum games can include as many as two players or millions of participants.
In the financial markets, futures and options are considered zero-sum games because contracts are agreements between two parties, and if one investor loses, then the wealth passes to the other investor.
Most transactions are non-zero-sum games because the end result can be beneficial to both parties.
Futures contracts are financial derivatives that oblige the buyer to purchase some underlying asset (or the seller to sell that asset) at a predetermined price and date in the future.
A horizontal spread is a simultaneous long and short position in derivatives for the same underlying asset and strike price, but with different expiration dates.
centner (abbreviated as CWT) is a standard unit of weight or mass used in some commodity markets. It can also be used to determine the price of small batches of goods.
Tick size - the minimum change in the price increment of a trading instrument.
– Tick sizes used to be in fractions (e.g. 1/16th of $1), but today they are mostly decimal based and expressed in cents.