When trading stock index futures, investors need to face a variety of risks. Because of the leverage characteristics of stock index futures, its trading has the characteristics of high risk and high return. According to the general classification, the risks of stock index futures trading can be divided into the following categories:

1. Agency risk: This involves problems that investors may encounter when choosing futures intermediaries, such as illegal institutions or individuals acting as agents for futures trading, or improper actions taken by futures companies that cause investors to suffer losses.

2. Operational risk: transaction risk caused by human error or system failure. Investors should be proficient in trading software and keep a high degree of concentration when trading.

3. Market risk: the risk of losses caused by fluctuations in stock index futures prices. High leverage means that even small price changes may have a significant impact on investors' rights and interests.

4. Cash flow risk: the risk that investors may face when they cannot raise enough funds in time to meet the margin requirements.

5. Liquidity risk: the risk that investors may not be able to establish or close their positions in time at a reasonable price due to the lack of counterparties.

6. Legal risk: in the transaction, if the relevant behavior conflicts with laws and regulations, it may lead to failure to obtain the expected economic effect or suffer losses.

In addition, for investors who adopt quantitative trading mode, they also need to guard against the following special risks:

Model risk: quantify the risk of signal failure caused by inaccurate trading strategy model.

Technical risk: the risk of transaction errors caused by defects or failures of information systems.

Execution risk: transaction risk caused by system program or architecture error.

Compliance risk: risks that may lead to violations, such as insider trading and market manipulation.