Two classes of financial instrument in particular were made available to investors by deregulation from the 1970s onwards, and were central to the subsequent massive growth in financial transactions and profitability. These were derivatives, contracts on the future delivery of a financial instrument or commodity which allowed investors to make bets on their price movement; and securitizations, bundles of income-yielding instruments that turned these into tradable securities (and enabled their inclusion in derivative contracts). Commercial banks made a particular breakthrough in the early 2000s
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