1. account opening: to participate in stock index futures trading, customers need to sign risk disclosure and futures brokerage contracts with qualified futures companies and open futures accounts.

2. Place an order: refers to the behavior that the customer sends a trading order to the futures company before each transaction, explaining the type, direction, quantity and price of the contract to be bought and sold.

3. Settlement: Settlement refers to the business activities of calculating and distributing the trading margin, profit and loss, handling fees and other related funds of members or customers according to the trading results and relevant provisions of CICC.

4. Closing or delivery: Closing refers to the behavior of customers to close futures trading by buying or selling contracts of the same variety and quantity, but with opposite trading directions. Stock index futures contracts are delivered in cash.

The full name of stock index futures (SPIF) is stock index futures, which can also be called stock index futures and futures index. It refers to the standardized futures contract with the stock price index as the subject matter. The two parties agree to buy and sell the underlying index according to the size of the stock price index determined in advance at a future date, and settle the difference in cash after the expiration. As a type of futures trading, stock index futures trading has basically the same characteristics and processes as ordinary commodity futures trading. Stock index futures are a kind of futures, which can be roughly divided into two categories, commodity futures and financial futures.

Avoiding investment risks When investors are not optimistic about the stock market, they can short the futures through the hedging function of stock index futures to lock in the book profit of the stock, so that they don't have to throw out their stocks, resulting in a panic decline in the stock market;

Reducing stock market volatility Stock index futures can reduce the daily average amplitude and monthly average amplitude of the stock market, and restrain the irrational fluctuation of the stock market. For example, the daily average amplitude of the Shanghai and Shenzhen 300 Index is 2.5 1% monthly average amplitude 14.9% in the five years before the introduction of stock index futures, and 1.95% monthly average amplitude 10.7 in the five years after the introduction.

Enriching investment strategies, stock index futures and other financial derivatives provide investors with risk hedging tools, which can enrich different investment strategies, change the status quo of consistency of stock market trading strategies, provide investors with diversified wealth management tools, and achieve long-term stable income goals.