Stock index futures have nothing to do with stocks. The difference between stock index futures and stocks is that stock index futures can be short or long. Stock index futures is based on the stock index, and a contract value is calculated according to the amount of each index point. Stock index futures trading has a margin. Take the Shanghai Stock Exchange as an example. If each index point is 100 yuan at 3000 points, then the value of the stock index futures contract is 3 million. If the margin is 65,438+00%, you only need 300,000 yuan to get a short or long contract. If there are many stocks in your portfolio, you can use stock index futures to hedge them. One of the functions of futures is hedging. In fact, when you sell stocks, you buy a corresponding share of futures. If the stock price goes up in the future, you will lose money selling the stock. However, because you made a profit by doing more futures, this profit just made up for your loss in the stock. This is hedging.