Futures, also known as "futures contracts", are uniformly formulated by the futures exchange, with standard terms, allowing listing and trading. The holder of a futures contract has the right to deliver a certain amount and quality of assets at a certain time in the future.

Every futures contract will have standardized terms, which specify in detail the variety, quantity and quality of the corresponding assets, the expiration time of the contract and so on. The only thing that is not stipulated is the price, which is determined by investors who participate in futures trading in the market. However, the futures contract stipulates the minimum change price, and investors must quote an integer multiple of this price every time. In addition, the price limit also stipulates that the price of futures contracts cannot exceed or fall below a certain value in one day. For example, the Shanghai Futures Exchange stipulates that the daily price fluctuation range of copper futures contracts cannot be higher or lower than 3% of the settlement price of the previous trading day.

In addition, the trading of futures contracts adopts the margin system, and investors only need to pay a margin accounting for a certain proportion of the contract value, so they can be small and broad. Theoretically, it is also possible to deliver and pick up the goods after the futures contract expires, but this is rare.