The so-called precious metal futures refer to futures contracts with the gold price in the precious metal market as the trading target at a certain time in the future. The profit and loss of investors buying and selling precious metal futures is measured by the difference between the time of entry and exit, which is the physical delivery after the contract expires.
Spot refers to physical delivery, such as gold bars and coins. Precious metal spot is only a virtual book transaction, and no physical delivery is made. How many grams of gold are there in your passbook? It's just a bookkeeping symbol, and you can't extract physical gold. It just earns the difference by buying and selling. The former can preserve and increase value, but it takes time. I'm afraid it's not safe to keep gold bars at home. I can rent a safe in the bank. Because the latter does not involve physical objects, there is no potential safety hazard, but it is also necessary to grasp the market when trading.
Difference 2, trading time
Trading time: Spot precious metals are composed of Asian plate, European plate and American plate. Its trading time is 24 hours, and investors can trade at any time of the day. But futures have a trading time limit. In China, the trading time of Shanghai Gold on the Shanghai Stock Exchange just missed the beginning of the European and American markets where the price of gold fluctuated the most.
Difference three. Trading rules
Trading rules, spot precious metals are traded by market traders, that is to say, you can successfully facilitate trading at any time if you want to buy or sell, but futures are matchmaking transactions. When the big market comes, there may be cases of non-delivery, which to some extent infinitely increases the risk of investors.
Difference 4, leverage ratio
The highest leverage ratio of spot precious metals is 1 to 100. As long as you pay a deposit of 1000, you can do primary trading, but futures need much more funds, and the demand for funds is large, and the corresponding risks are also great.