Before physical delivery or cash delivery expires, investors can voluntarily decide to buy or sell futures contracts based on market conditions and personal wishes. However, if an investor (long or short) does not perform a reverse operation (sell or buy) with equal delivery month and quantity, and holds a futures contract, it is called a "position". In commodity futures operations such as gold, whether buying or selling, any new position is called opening a position. After the operator opens a position, he holds the position in his hand, which is called a position. Extended information
For investors, their positions are naturally clear. The total number of positions in the entire market can actually be obtained. In the market information released by the exchange, there is a special column of "total positions", which means the total number of "open positions" of all investors in the market on the futures contract. Traders are constantly opening and closing positions when trading, and the total position is therefore constantly changing. As the total position becomes larger or smaller, it reflects the market's interest in the contract, so it has become an indicator that investors are very concerned about.
If the total positions increase all the way, it means that both long and short parties are opening positions, market traders are growing in interest in the contract, and more and more funds are pouring into the contract transaction; on the contrary, when The total positions have been decreasing, indicating that both long and short parties are closing their positions and traders' interest in this contract is ebbing. Another situation is that when the trading volume increases, the total position does not change much, which indicates that the main trading volume is changing hands.
Reference: Baidu Encyclopedia-Position