Although stock futures is unique and dazzles the investment market, its disadvantages and possible harm are also obvious. As a double-edged sword, its risk is obviously higher than that of stock trading, option trading and index futures. Because of this, stock futures will be decades later than stock options and index futures, and will ultimately depend on the personal intervention of the federal congress. Although Congress has to raise the threshold of stock futures under the pressure of the international market, it also reflects that it is deeply alert to the possible adverse effects of stock futures.

First of all, the risk of stock futures is much greater than that of stock trading. There are four main reasons. First of all, any slight change in the stock price will be amplified by the leverage effect of futures trading, which will make investors miss a mile. Generally, the lower the margin limit, the greater the leverage effect and the higher the investment risk. Although the margin limit of 20% for stock futures is higher than 3% to 5% for commodity futures, it is still much higher than 50% for stock trading.

Secondly, all derivative financial products have a * * * nature, that is, the persistence and rapidity of price changes. As mentioned above, the price of stock futures is not only affected by the price of the underlying stock, but also interfered by other factors, such as the length of the maturity date and the interest rate. Therefore, even if the stock price is stable, the price of stock futures may be driven by other factors, which will lead to the volatility of stock futures is much higher than that of stock trading.

In addition, there is no deadline for stock trading. If an investor is trapped, as long as he has enough liquidity and confidence in the company's long-term prospects, he can continue to hold shares and wait patiently until the company regroups and makes a comeback. However, stock futures have a clear validity period. If the stock does not make a comeback before the maturity date, investors will keep losing money until they are eliminated before dawn.

Finally, stock futures are usually only valid for two to three months. Therefore, investors must adopt the method of relay progression, temporarily transfer to the next round of futures when the maturity date comes, and repeat it until the end of the strategy cycle. This requires investors to have a full understanding of futures trading and its relay mechanism in order to reduce the unique progressive risks of futures exchanges. At the same time, the progressive relay process also requires investors not only to judge the stock price step by step, but also to step by step, so as not to fall into the dilemma of "one wrong step, all bets are off".

The second is that the risk of stock futures will be much greater than that of stock options and index options. Although both options and futures belong to the category of derivative products, and both have term and leverage effects, their concepts and operations are completely different, and the risks are even more different. For example, when buying options to be purchased, investors only need to pay a certain amount, and what they buy is the right to buy the underlying stock at a certain price before the future expiration date. This amount is also the largest amount that investors may lose, which means that investors do not need to re-inject funds during the whole option trading process.

But stock futures are completely different. The futures and spot prices of stocks are always changing, and they will inevitably merge into one at maturity, and investors have no idea of giving up their rights. When the maturity date comes, they either settle in cash or fulfill their promise to buy and sell the underlying stocks. At the same time, although investors only need to pay a 20% margin when buying futures, if the trend of the stock price runs counter to the investor's forecast, then investors will have to continue to pay money as an additional margin under the pressure of urging the margin, that is to say, the loss is unpredictable and endless.

Third, the risk of stock futures will be much higher than that of stock index futures. First of all, the index is a collection of all kinds of stocks, most of which meet the principles and requirements of investment diversification. Therefore, there are few special risks related to individual stocks, and the only remaining risks are systemic risks or market risks that cannot be eliminated through diversified investment. Stock futures are based on a single stock, which combines special risks and market risks, so its price fluctuation will undoubtedly be more intense than stock index futures. Secondly, the trading volume and liquidity of stock futures are far less than that of stock index futures, which leads to the bid-ask spread and transaction cost much higher than that of stock index futures. In the investment market, financial products that lack liquidity and trading volume will never have vitality. Therefore, the historical position of stock futures can only be determined after the early stage of development.