Six differences between financial futures and commodity futures

1. Financial futures have no actual underlying assets (such as stock index futures, etc.). ), and commodity futures are traded with physical commodities, such as agricultural products and metals.

2. The delivery of financial futures is very convenient. The delivery of commodity futures is more complicated. In addition to strict regulations on delivery time, place and delivery method, delivery grades should also be strictly divided. The delivery of financial futures is generally settled in cash, so it is much simpler. In addition, even if some financial futures (such as foreign exchange futures and bond futures) are delivered in kind, because these products are homogeneous, there is basically no transportation cost.

3. Some financial futures have a longer term than commodity futures, and the futures contract of long-term US government bonds can be valid for several years. Commodity futures prices, especially agricultural futures prices, are obviously affected by seasonal factors.

4. The cost of holding is different. The cost of holding a futures contract to the maturity date is the holding cost, which includes three items: storage cost, transportation cost and financing cost. All kinds of goods need to be put in storage, which requires storage fees, and financial futures contracts do not need storage fees. If the subject matter of financial futures is deposited in financial institutions, there are still interests, such as stock dividends, bond interest and foreign exchange interest, sometimes these interests will exceed the storage cost, resulting in holding income (that is, negative holding cost).

5. The blind spot of the delivery price of financial futures has been greatly reduced. In commodity futures, due to the existence of large delivery costs, these delivery costs bring certain losses to both long and short sides. In financial futures, because there is no transportation cost and storage cost, this price blind spot is greatly reduced.

6. It is difficult to be strong in financial futures. In commodity futures, sometimes there will be forced quotes, which usually show that there is a big difference in spot prices and it is beyond the reasonable range. A more serious forced position is that the manipulator controls both spot and futures. The forced liquidation of financial futures is difficult to happen because the financial spot market is a huge market, and it is not easy for bookmakers to manipulate it. Secondly, because of the existence of strong arbitrage power, they will bury those bookmakers who try to launch a short-selling market; Finally, for some financial futures with cash delivery, the final delivery price of futures contracts is the spot price at that time, which is equivalent to establishing a mandatory convergence guarantee system.

(Excerpted from China Futures Association's lecture notes on basic knowledge training of financial futures) Source: Securities Times.