Futures investors are the main body of the futures market. According to the identity of investors, they can be divided into individual investors and institutional investors. However, in futures trading, investors are generally divided into hedgers and speculators according to their different purposes of participating in futures trading, and the latter also includes arbitrageurs.

Hedgers are traders who avoid the risk of stock system through stock index futures trading and are the main participants in the stock index futures market. The hedgers of stock index futures mainly include securities issuers, fund management companies, insurance companies, securities companies and individual stock investors.

Speculators refer to futures traders in the futures market, both individuals and large and medium-sized institutions. Because of the margin system in futures trading, speculators can trade several times their funds with a small amount of funds, so they have the opportunity to make high profits. Speculators are important participants in the futures market. Their participation has increased the volume of market transactions, improved liquidity, and assumed the price risk that hedgers hope to pass on.

Arbitrage traders are also speculators, but compared with pure speculators, the way of speculation is different. Arbitrage traders will not be as big as pure speculators in view of the temporary unreasonable price difference between two identical or related assets in the market, while buying low and selling high.