Intertemporal arbitrage: refers to trading between futures contracts with different maturities at the same time and taking advantage of the price difference between contracts with different maturities to obtain arbitrage opportunities. For example, if you make more recent contracts and short forward contracts at the same time, you can make a profit when the price of the recent contract goes up and the price of the forward contract goes down.
Cross-variety arbitrage: refers to trading between futures contracts of different varieties at the same time, and taking advantage of the price difference between different varieties to obtain arbitrage opportunities. For example, if the copper price rises and the aluminum price falls, you can make a profit by making more copper futures contracts and shorting aluminum futures contracts.
Cross-market arbitrage: refers to trading between different futures markets and taking advantage of the price difference between different markets to obtain arbitrage opportunities. For example, if you make more futures contracts in the China futures market and short the same futures contract in the international futures market, you can make profits when the price difference between the two markets becomes larger.
Futures spot arbitrage: refers to trading between the futures market and the spot market at the same time, and taking advantage of the price difference between the two markets to obtain arbitrage opportunities. For example, when the price difference between the spot market and the futures market becomes larger, buying a commodity in the spot market and selling the futures contract of the commodity in the futures market can gain income.
It should be noted that futures arbitrage requires investors to have certain market analysis and trading skills, and needs to be operated under controllable risks. Before futures arbitrage, investors should fully understand the market and trading rules, formulate reasonable trading strategies, strictly control positions and risks, and ensure the success and stable income of arbitrage operations.