In essence, stock futures and stock index futures are closely related, because in the final analysis, both products are financial products derived from stock spot (stock derivatives also include stock options, stock index options and so on). ), and both are closely related to the stock spot market. There is an interactive relationship between the price of stock futures and the spot price of a single stock; The stock index is obtained by comparing the stock prices of constituent stocks in the reporting period and the base period, so there is an interactive relationship between the price of stock index futures and the overall performance of these individual constituent stocks. In addition, there are many similarities in contract terms, such as the calculation method of contract month, expiration date, settlement price and delivery price. Functionally, stock futures and stock index futures are both futures, so they have the general functions of futures, such as hedging and price discovery, and can be used to hedge the risk, speculation, arbitrage and asset allocation of spot stocks. But the specific operation occasions are different. There are obvious differences between stock futures and stock index futures in some contract terms: from the risk nature of the two futures hedging, stock index futures is the systematic risk of hedging stocks, while stock futures is the overall risk of hedging individual stocks, including systematic risk and non-systematic risk related to individual stocks. From the application of the two futures, stock index futures have a better hedging effect on passive indexed investment, while stock futures have a better hedging effect on active investment that hopes to outperform the market through stock selection. Judging from the development of the two futures markets, stock index futures were born in the early 1980s and traded actively in major financial markets. Due to the jurisdiction conflict of American regulators, stock futures have been difficult to come out in the United States. Affected by this, before 200 1, there was basically no stock futures trading in mainstream financial markets such as western Europe and Japan, and only some markets such as northern Europe, southern Europe, eastern Europe, Hong Kong and Macao had transactions, so the liquidity could not be compared with stock index futures. Stock futures need the cooperation of margin financing and securities lending business, and the trading mechanism of stock futures is very similar to that of stock index futures.