Futures is a concept relative to spot. Strictly speaking, futures is not a commodity, but a standardized commodity contract, which stipulates that both parties to the transaction will trade a specific commodity or financial asset in the future according to the contract content.

Let's make a comparison with stocks. Stock is that the holder keeps changing hands, and the transfer of stock makes a profit through the price difference. Futures means that buyers and sellers have different expectations of the price fluctuation trend, and through the judgment of the expectations, they can directly trade long and short.

Because futures is a margin system, there is a certain percentage of margin for the sale of any commodity, which is the leverage principle of futures. That is, 10% margin can be used for 100% transaction.

For example, the price of futures soybeans is now 2200 yuan per ton. Do you think it can rise to 3000 yuan in the future?

You can buy multiple positions, wait until the price rises to 3,000 yuan, then short, hedge and close positions, and earn 800 yuan per ton.

This is the same as the operation method of stocks.

If you think that the current soybean price of 2200 yuan will drop to 1500 yuan in the future.

You can open positions by shorting. When the price falls to 1500 yuan, you can buy more hedging positions, and you can get 700 yuan's income per ton.

In other words, futures trading is two-way.