For the global futures and options industry, 2008 was a wild year. Several major market participants, including some of the largest players in the markets, vanished from the scene. Counterparty credit risk shot to the top of market user worries. Volatility skyrocketed and liquidity evaporated, especially after Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy in September, and volume for some of the industry’s biggest and best-known contracts took a definite turn for the worse.

For months there has been extensive preparation, but yet no derivatives clearinghouse has begun clearing credit default swaps. And while there is widespread agreement that clearing is a way forward for this $27 trillion market, numerous obstacles continue to delay a robust launch. Lawmakers and regulators are vying for turf in both the U.S and Europe; the instruments to be cleared must be restructured and standardized; and some of the more complex instruments may never be suitable for clearing.

Over the past decade, futures trading technology has undergone a major transformation. We’ve seen the speed of trading move from being measured in seconds in the pit to milliseconds on the screen and now microseconds with the advent of proximity access and strategy automation. Ten years ago co-location was not in anyone’s vocabulary. Now it is almost a given in the high-speed trading community, and the search is on for new ways to maintain the so-called “infrastructure edge.”

The House Agriculture Committee on Feb. 12 approved H.R. 977, the Derivatives Markets Transparency and Accountability Act of 2009. Although the legislation is a long way from becoming law, it is likely to have an important role in t Congressional efforts to limit speculation in the commodity futures markets and to strengthen regulation and oversight for both listed and over-the-counter derivatives trading.

Singapore Exchange is planning several changes to the structure of its derivatives clearinghouse, SGX-DC, in order to rejuvenate the default fund in line with increased volume and volatility. After hovering in the 25-38 million range for most of the decade, SGX volumes took off in 2007 and hit a new peak of 61.8 million last year. SGX has not quantified the increase in volatility, but the exchange has not made a major change to its default fund structure in over five years.

Can we prevent another financial crisis like the one we are now experiencing? Part of the answer is to analyze what went wrong, but history has shown that this is not enough. The lessons of past financial crises, no matter how painful at the time, tend to fade over time as markets return to normal and a new generation of traders, bankers and regulators rises to the top.

Clint Eastwood’s latest flick Gran Torino generated $97 million in box office revenues during the first two weeks after it was widely released. Thirty percent of that was raised in the first weekend alone. At that rate, the action-packed film could generate more than $200 million in box office receipts—not bad for a movie that cost roughly $33 million to produce.