Physical delivery refers to the behavior of the buyers and sellers of futures contracts to close the positions of the expired open contracts by transferring the ownership of the subject matter of futures contracts in accordance with the rules and procedures formulated by the exchange. Commodity futures trading generally adopts the way of physical delivery.
Cash delivery means that when futures contracts are closed at the end of the period, the profit and loss of open contracts are calculated at the settlement price, and futures contracts are finally settled by cash payment. This delivery method is mainly used for financial futures and other futures contracts that cannot be delivered in kind, such as stock index futures contracts. In recent years, some foreign exchanges are also exploring the use of cash delivery for commodity futures trading. China's commodity futures market does not allow cash delivery.