First of all, interest rate futures can hedge systemic risks and maintain social and economic stability. In the early stage, due to the flood of liquidity in Europe and America, the global inflation level rose rapidly, which caused great harm to emerging economies. Many governments have responded to inflation by raising the benchmark interest rate and other monetary means, and the global overall interest rate fluctuation has obviously increased, and both borrowers and lenders are facing great interest rate risks, which has brought great pressure to the enterprise capital chain. In the domestic market, the timely introduction of interest rate futures can provide institutions and the public with a tool to avoid interest rate risks, which will greatly promote the steady operation of enterprises and improve their ability to resist risks.
Secondly, the hedging function of interest rate futures can improve the activity of bond market. At present, the investor structure in the domestic bond market is not reasonable enough, and state-owned commercial banks and insurance companies hold most of the national debt and inter-bank bonds, forming a certain industry monopoly. In the absence of effective hedging instruments, these institutional investors tend to adopt a long-term holding strategy, so it is difficult to reach a deal when the market changes, resulting in poor liquidity in the entire bond market. The introduction of interest rate futures can greatly improve this situation. Because the futures market adopts margin trading and short selling mechanism, on the one hand, existing investors can actively avoid risks when interest rates change, instead of adopting passive holding strategy; On the other hand, it can attract more investors and speculators to enter the bond market, change the uneven distribution of investors in the spot bond market, expand bond demand, improve bond liquidity, promote the reasonable term structure of interest rates, and then promote the continuous development and maturity of the bond market.
Thirdly, interest rate futures will promote the realization of interest rate marketization as soon as possible. The spot trading mode determines the following limitations of China's national debt trading: first, the transaction cost is too high relative to futures, and the market's response to interest rates is not as sensitive as futures; Second, due to the segmentation of the spot market, the yield of government bonds formed lacks authority and guidance; Third, the rate of return formed by spot trading can only reflect the interest rates of different periods at the current time point, and it is difficult to reasonably predict the interest rate level at the future time point and form a complete market interest rate system. If there is a centralized treasury bond futures market, the yield formed in the transaction process is the market interest rate. Arbitrage between futures and spot can promote the spot market to form a unified benchmark market interest rate, and gradually form a complete treasury bond yield system from short-term to long-term, providing an important yield curve signal for the financial market, playing a corresponding role in the process of interest rate marketization, and providing a basis for the state to judge the financial situation and carry out financial macro-control.
Finally, interest rate futures can also effectively reduce the cost of government macro-control. The forward-looking price trend of interest rate futures can provide a basis and reference for the central bank's monetary policy operation and decision-making. The sensitivity and ductility of interest rate futures can shorten the distance for the central bank to influence the macroeconomic operation through the financial market and help improve the operating effect of the open market.