There are several processes in futures trading: delivery or opening, holding and closing.
Opening a position, also known as opening a position, refers to investors buying or selling a certain number of futures contracts.
There are two ways to open a position, one is bullish (buyer) and the other is bearish (seller). Whether you are long or short, placing an order is called "opening a position". (For example, if you buy 10 corn futures contract for the first time and 10 corn futures contract for the second time, then both transactions are open positions. )
Closing position refers to the behavior of futures investors to buy or sell futures contracts with the same variety, quantity and delivery month but opposite trading direction, and close the futures trading. (Investors must select the "Close Position" button when issuing the close position instruction, otherwise it may default to "Open Position")
Open position contract, also known as open position contract (or open position contract), refers to the futures contract that has not been opened before the physical delivery expires and after the opening of the position.
There are two ways of futures delivery: physical delivery and cash delivery.
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. After entering the delivery period, the seller submits the standard warehouse receipt, and the buyer submits the full amount, and goes through the delivery formalities at the exchange.
About 98% of the participants took the opportunity to close the futures contracts they bought (or sold) on the last trading day one month before the expiration of the contracts, thus releasing the obligation of physical delivery at maturity. For example, if you bought 10 lot of corn in the contract of 65438+ 10 in 2009, you should sell 65438 on or before February 65438+in 2008-otherwise, the exchange will automatically close the position for you (of course, if you are a hedging company, a trader or a farmer, the exchange will not). Just like financial accounting, loans are equal and accounts are even.
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. China's commodity futures market does not allow cash delivery.
Examples of profits and losses
Suppose: open a position to buy 1 hand corn contract. Buy 1 corn futures contract for delivery next year 10 at the price of 2000 yuan/ton.
When the corn futures price is favorable to you (for example, 2 100 yuan/ton), close your position (that is, sell 1 hand corn futures and deliver them in 65438+ next year1October)-or it can be understood as: if the futures expire, it means that you have to fulfill the contract to pick up the spot. If you don't mention the spot, you already bought the goods. As long as you sell them, you don't have to pick up the goods. After closing the position, your profit is 1000 yuan (1 0 ton in the corn contract, earning 100 yuan per ton * 100 ton = 1000 yuan-excluding the handling fee); If the closing price is 1900 yuan, you will lose 1000 yuan (per ton 100 yuan, per ton 100 yuan).
After opening an account in a futures company, you can use 6% ~ 20% margin to conduct online transactions; If you are bullish, you will open long positions, and if you are bearish, you will open short positions. You can trade countless times a day, or you can do long-term trading for months.
After opening a futures account, you can trade 20 kinds of commodity futures, including copper, aluminum, zinc, gold, natural rubber, fuel oil, soybean I, soybean II, soybean meal, soybean oil, corn, palm oil, strong wheat, hard wheat, cotton I, cotton II, sugar, PTA, rapeseed oil and plastics. There are also steel futures, stock index futures and pig futures.