So, Jack has a million SCOM shares which he promises to sell to John at 7 bob each On 1st June. As a sign of commitment, John pays Jack 10 cents each....100k in total....
SCOM declares 30bn profit and demand shoots to 10 bob.....shares are short supply....but Jane wants some, so she goes to Jack and he tells her that he had promised to sell to John....so she goes to John and offers him 50cents for the right to buy from Jack....he pockets the 500k and transfers the rights to Jane
Jane rushes to Jack, buys the 1m shares at 7m and then sells them in the open market and makes 2.5m
All so fine....until Jane decides to sell the rights to Joe at one bob each instead of executing them [making 500k], and Joe sells them over to Jill at 1.50 [also making 500k] and Jill sells to Jim at 2 bob [another 500k] ...and so on......eventually we have a market for these rights which in reality don't have any hard value...they are just a promise to do something!
Nothing is real unless it can be named; nothing has value unless it can be sold; money is worthless unless you spend it.