In the investing world, futures are contracts to buy or sell something at a set price on a set date in the future. The idea is straightforward. Two parties agree today on a price, but the actual exchange happens later. This sounds simple, but results can be hard to predict and owe a lot to seemingly random factors in the global economy. One example of this was the series of  record-high prices set by Arabica coffee in early 2025, which drove consumer costs higher and led to multiple disruptions downstream ...