This is a first, water becomes a speculative product on a financial market. Indeed, in the US, futures contracts backed by the Nasdaq Veles California Water Index are now traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the main US futures market place.

At the close at the beginning of the week, the financial title sold under the NQH2O ticket, closed at a price of $ 496 per foot of acre (about 1233.5 m3). Since then, futures contracts for delivery in January 2021 have begun to grow.

Today, @CMEGroup launches a futures contract on the @Nasdaq Veles California Water Index (NQH2O), allowing investors to manage the price risk associated with the scarcity of water in the largest water market in the U.S.

Learn more: https://t.co/5xe0fuLTT5 pic.twitter.com/KNpC1Y9Lyj

If this new title is supposed to help farmers (mainly Western) to protect themselves from possible fluctuations in the price of water, it could serve as an indicator of scarcity for ressouce, in a context of ever-increasing demand, climate change, and accentuation of global appetites (especially to feed intensive agriculture, very voracious in water).

Blue gold is becoming more and more precious and rare on a global scale. While Africa has several traditional hotbeds of water stress (Sahel and Horn, in particular), the same is true in parts of Latin America (Mexico and north-eastern Brazil), and in densely populated regions of Asia: in China and India.

It should also be noted that the African continent has one of the largest water reserves in the world, but lacks infrastructure for its distribution and sanitation. For example, its subsoil contains 660,000 cubic kilometers of reserves, 100 times more than the amount of water on the surface. Enough to arouse new desires or predations, in a context of progressive scarcity at the global level.