The future in English is the future, which evolved from the word "future". It means that both parties to the transaction don't have to deliver the physical object at the initial stage of buying and selling, but agree to deliver the physical object at some time in the future, so China people call it "futures".
The original futures trading developed from spot forward trading. The initial spot forward transaction is a verbal commitment by both parties to deliver a certain amount of goods at a certain time. Later, with the expansion of the scope of transactions, oral promises were gradually replaced by sales contracts. This kind of contract behavior is becoming more and more complicated, and it needs intermediary guarantee to supervise the timely delivery and payment of goods, so the Royal Exchange, the world's first commodity forward contract exchange opened by 1570 in London, appeared. In order to adapt to the continuous development of commodity economy, Chicago Grain Exchange introduced a standardized agreement called "futures contract" at 1985, which replaced the old forward contract. With this standardized contract, manual trading can be carried out, and the margin system is gradually improved, so a futures market specializing in standardized contract trading has been formed, and futures has become an investment and financial management tool for investors.
The characteristics of futures are small and wide, short-selling, two-way money-making, and high risk. Therefore, China is very cautious about the opening of futures trading. Futures speculation is very similar to the stock market, but there are also obvious differences.
First, large-cap stocks are traded in full, that is, you can only buy as many shares as you have, while the futures system is a margin system, that is, you only need to pay 5% to 10% of the turnover to trade 100%. For example, if an investor has 1 10,000 yuan, he can buy 1000 shares if he buys1000 yuan, and he can clinch a commodity futures contract with110,000 yuan by investing in futures, that is, taking small bets and making big ones.
Second, the two-way trading of stocks is one-way. Only by buying stocks first can you sell them. Futures can be bought or sold first, which is a two-way transaction.
Third, time limit There is no time limit for stock trading. If the quilt cover can be closed for a long time, and the futures must be delivered at maturity, otherwise the exchange will force the liquidation or physical delivery.
4. Profit and loss The actual income of stock investment has two parts, one is the market price difference, the other is the dividend, and the profit and loss of futures investment is the actual profit and loss in market transactions.
5. The futures with huge risks are characterized by high returns and high risks due to the implementation of the margin system, the additional margin system and the restriction of compulsory liquidation at maturity. In a sense, futures can make you rich overnight, or you may be penniless in an instant, so investors should invest carefully.
How to buy and sell futures contracts?
The whole process of futures trading can be summarized as opening positions, holding positions, closing positions or physical delivery.
Opening a position means that a trader newly buys or sells a certain number of futures contracts. For example, you can sell 10 soybean futures contracts. When this transaction is your first transaction, it is called opening a position. In the futures market, buying and selling a futures contract is equivalent to signing a forward delivery contract. An open contract after opening a position is called an open contract or an open contract, also known as a position. When opening a position, the position held after buying a futures contract is called a long position, referred to as a long position; The positions held after selling futures contracts are called short positions, referred to as short positions.
If the trader keeps the futures contract until the end of the last trading day, he must settle the futures transaction through physical delivery. However, only a few people make physical delivery. About 99% market participants choose to sell the futures contracts they bought or buy back the futures contracts they sold before the end of the last trading day, that is, hedge the original futures contracts through the same number of futures transactions in opposite directions, so as to close the futures transactions and relieve the obligation of physical delivery at maturity. For example, if you sold 65,438+00 lots of soybean contracts in May 2000, you should buy 65,438+00 lots of the same contract to hedge your position before the contract expires in May 2000. In this way, a transaction is over as soon as it is even. It's just like financial accounting. Once the same amount of money goes in and out, the account will be balanced. This behavior of buying back a sold contract or selling a bought contract is called liquidation. After opening the position, traders can choose two ways to close the futures contract: either choose the opportunity to close the position or reserve it for physical delivery on the last trading day.
Futures traders may gain or lose money when buying and selling futures contracts. So, from the perspective of traders themselves, what kind of transactions are profitable? What kind of transaction is a loss? Please look at an example. For example, you choose to buy and sell soybeans 1 contracts. You sell the 1 hand soybean contract for delivery in May next year at the price of 2 188 yuan/ton. At this time, your trading position is called "short position" Now you can say that you are a "short seller" or that you are shorting the 1 hand soybean contract.
When you become a bear, you have two choices. One is to keep short positions until the contract expires. At the time of delivery, you buy 10 tons of soybeans in the spot market and submit them to the buyer of the contract. If you can buy soybeans at a price lower than 2 188 yuan/ton, you can make a profit after delivery; On the contrary, if you buy at a price higher than 2 188 yuan/ton, you will lose money. For example, if you spend 2238 yuan/ton on soybean delivery, then you will lose 500 yuan (excluding transaction and delivery costs).
As a short position, your other option is to hedge your position when the soybean futures price is favorable to you. In other words, if you are a seller (short), you can buy the same contract, become a buyer and close your position. If this confuses you, you can think about what you did when the contract expired: you bought soybeans from the spot market to make up for the short position and submitted them to the buyer of the contract, which is essentially the same. If you are short and long at the same time, the two cancel each other out, and you can leave the futures market. If you take 2 188 yuan/ton as a short position and 2058 yuan/ton as a long position to repurchase the original selling contract, then you can earn 1300 yuan (excluding transaction costs).