Futures is a standardized contract and a unified and long-term "commodity" contract. Buying and selling futures contracts is actually a promise to buy or sell a certain number of "commodities" in the future ("commodities" can be physical commodities such as soybeans and copper, as well as financial products such as stock indexes and foreign exchange). Strictly speaking, futures is not a commodity, but a standardized commodity contract, which stipulates that both parties to the transaction will trade a specific commodity or financial asset in the future according to the contract content. Futures trading is a trading method relative to spot trading, which is developed on the basis of spot trading and is an organized trading method by buying and selling standardized futures contracts on futures exchanges. The object of futures trading is not the commodity itself, but the standardized contract of the commodity.

Give a small example in life to help you understand. For example, if you go to a flower shop to buy flowers, buy them now and pay them now, which is a spot transaction; If it is agreed to pay and deliver on the birthday two months later, it is a forward transaction. The emergence of futures trading is derived from spot trading and forward trading, and developed on the basis of forward trading. The futures contract mentioned above is actually a standardized forward contract. That is to say, the type, quality, quantity, delivery time and place of the goods (the subject matter of the contract) are agreed in advance in the contract, so that the buyer and the seller will not dispute the quality, quantity, delivery place and time of the goods.