Commodities are not held for permanent investment, but are bought and sold primarily for the purpose of commercial distribution; on the other hand, securities are primarily held for investment; but both are subject of speculation. Speculation consists in forecasting changes of value and buying or selling in order to take advantage of them; it may be wholly legitimate, pure gambling, or something partaking of the qualities of both. In some form it is a necessary incident of productive operations. When carried on in connection with either commodities or securities it tends to steady their prices. Where speculation is free, fluctuations in prices, otherwise violent and disastrous, ordinarily become gradual and comparatively harmless. Moreover, so far as commodities are concerned, in the absence of speculation, merchants and manufacturers would themselves be forced to carry the risks involved in changes of prices and to bear them in the intensified condition resulting from sudden and violent fluctuations in value. Risks of this kind which merchants and manufacturers still have to assume are reduced in amount, because of the speculation prevailing; and many of these milder risks they are enabled, by “hedging,” to transfer to others. For the merchant or manufacturer the speculator performs a service which has the effect of insurance. In law, speculation becomes gambling when the trading which it involves does not lead, and is not intended to lead, to the actual passing from hand to hand of the property that is dealt in. Thus, in the recent case of Hurd vs. Taylor (181 N. Y., 231), the Court of Appeals of New York said: