The motives for participating in speculation are profit and seeking excitement. The high-risk and high-return characteristics of futures trading meet these two purposes at the same time In addition, the futures market has high liquidity and simple trading methods and objectives, so it is very easy to enter and exit futures trading, and the minimum capital required for entry is very small. Systematic and open futures market information, full-time staff to provide advice and information, is conducive to fair and equal competition. These characteristics attract a large number of people to speculate in the futures market.

Speculators will face profits and losses when speculating in the futures market, but the potential possibility of short speculators' profits and losses is no different from that of long speculators. Unlike hedgers, speculators are not interested in the actual goods specified in their futures contracts. They always hedge their contracts by doing opposite transactions before the contract expires, so as to avoid the responsibility of delivering the actual goods.

From the whole society, speculation is essentially a redistribution of existing social resources, which promotes the improvement of efficiency.