The international agricultural futures market originated in Chicago, USA. /kloc-In the middle of the 0/9th century, Chicago became one of the major distribution centers of agricultural products in the United States. Due to the unique seasonality of grain production, coupled with the lack of warehouses and inconvenient transportation at that time, the contradiction between grain supply and demand was extremely prominent. In order to improve the trading conditions and stabilize the relationship between production and sales, 82 businessmen initiated and successfully established the first central exchange in the United States, namely the Chicago Board of Trade. Since then, the Chicago Board of Trade has achieved a guarantee [blocking advertising]
The establishment of gold system and settlement company has become a futures market in a strict sense. For decades, the world agricultural futures markets have emerged, such as Tokyo Grain Exchange, new york Cotton Exchange and Winnipeg Commodity Exchange. The varieties of agricultural products futures trading are wheat, corn, soybean, soybean meal, red beans, rice, peanuts and so on.
With the expansion of spot production and circulation, new futures varieties appear constantly. In addition to wheat, corn, soybeans and other grain futures, from the end of 19 to the beginning of the 20th century, with the emergence of new exchanges in Chicago, new york, Kansas and other places, cash crops such as cotton, coffee, cocoa, butter, eggs, and later livestock and poultry products such as pigs, live cattle, pork breast meat, and forest products such as wood and natural rubber were also listed one after another.
Second, the domestic agricultural futures market
At present, among the three major futures exchanges in China, Dalian Commodity Exchange and Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange are mainly engaged in agricultural futures trading at this stage. The varieties approved for trading by Dalian Commodity Exchange include soybean, soybean meal and beer barley. The preparation of corn futures has been basically completed and it is expected to be listed in the near future. The varieties approved by Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange include wheat, mung bean, adzuki bean and peanut kernel. The soybean variety of Dashang Institute is the most active commodity agricultural product futures variety in China at present, and Dashang Institute has become the largest agricultural product futures exchange in China, the world non-GMO soybean futures trading center and the price discovery center.
By the end of 2002, * * * had 19 1 members with more than 69,000 customers, including about 1500 grain enterprises. Heilongjiang and Jilin are two major grain-producing provinces, and almost all counties have at least one or two grain enterprises, which have been engaged in the hedging business of soybean and corn futures of large commercial houses for many years.
Three, the main agricultural products spot base of large enterprises.
Northeast China is the largest commodity grain base in China, and the total grain commodities account for about 20% of the total grain commodities in China. The total corn commodity accounts for about 30% of the total corn commodity in China; The total amount of soybean commodities accounts for more than half of the total amount of soybean commodities in China.
Dalian is the largest grain transit hub and one of the grain distribution centers in China. It has the largest grain terminal in the Far East-Beiliang New Port, the largest grain warehouse in China and the largest grain spot wholesale market in Northeast China, forming a huge and complete grain storage and transportation, processing, trade, import and export enterprise group. Dalian has a unique geographical position, backed by the northeast grain production base and located in the grain distribution center. Dalian futures market is based on a relatively mature spot market with a solid foundation.
Four, the economic function of agricultural futures market
(1) The first function of the futures market is risk transfer.
Price risk can be said to be everywhere. In the commodity market, droughts, floods, wars, political turmoil, storms and other changes will spread all over the world, directly affecting commodity prices. Intense market competition will lead to large price fluctuations in a short period of time. The risk factors related to supply and demand also include the seasonality of harvest of some commodities and the seasonality of demand. The potential price risk brought by the unpredictability of supply and demand is inherent in the market economy, and both buyers and sellers can't resist it.
Futures contracts are legally binding agreements reached through exchanges. Futures contracts have uniform provisions on the quantity of commodities bought and sold, the expected time and place of delivery, and the quality of products. In fact, except for the price, all aspects of futures contracts have unified regulations. For this reason, futures contracts are attractive to hedgers who want to shelter from the rain and ensure that they are not affected by drastic price changes. The production of agricultural products is easily affected by climatic conditions that are independent of human will, and it is risky. Through the useful tool of futures contract, farmers, grain enterprises and even consumers can make more reliable estimates of agricultural products market.
Grain enterprises, food processing plants and oil plants can make better use of futures to manage purchase and sale, thus improving their operating profits. Grain depot operators can use agricultural products futures to provide customers with various flexible sales methods, thus occupying a competitive advantage. When storing crops, farms can use the futures market to lock in the ideal selling price. Feed enterprises can use agricultural products futures to limit the maximum purchase price to avoid the impact of rising feed raw materials or feed prices. Any enterprise related to the production and operation of agricultural products can use the agricultural futures of big exchanges to control costs and increase income.
Of course, in addition to hedging, futures contracts also have the function of risk speculation, and various futures contracts with different risks can provide investors with profit opportunities. For example, buying and selling agricultural futures and profiting from expected price changes.
(2) The second function of the futures market is to find the price.
In a market economy, producers and operators make business decisions according to the price signals provided by the market. The authenticity and accuracy of price signals directly affect the correctness of their business decisions, and then affect their business benefits.
Before the futures market came into being, producers and operators made decisions mainly on the basis of commodity prices in the spot market, and adjusted their business direction and mode according to the changes of spot prices. Because spot transactions are mostly scattered. It is not easy for producers and operators to collect the required price information in time. Even if the feedback information from the spot market is collected, it is scattered and one-sided, with low accuracy and authenticity, and poor ability to predict future changes in supply and demand. When the spot market price is used to guide enterprise decision-making, the lag of spot price often leads to decision-making mistakes. For example, for a long time, the grain circulation market in China has been plagued by the difficulty of selling grain at low prices and buying grain at high prices, partly because the grain production and business units lack a mechanism to guide production and sales at forward prices.
Since the emergence of futures trading, people have found that the price function has gradually become an important economic function of the futures market. The so-called price discovery function refers to the futures price formed by futures trading in an open, fair, efficient and competitive futures market, which has the characteristics of authenticity, predictability, continuity and authority, and can truly reflect the trend of future commodity price changes.
Futures prices can accurately and comprehensively reflect the real supply and demand situation and its changing trend, which has a strong guiding role for producers and operators. Although many producers and operators in the world do not participate in futures trading and have no direct relationship with the futures market, they are making their own production and operation decisions by using the prices discovered by futures exchanges and the market information disseminated. For example, manufacturers decide the production scale of commodities according to the changes of futures prices; In trade negotiations, the transaction price of bulk commodities is often determined on the basis of futures prices.