In commodity futures trading, individual investors have no right to hold positions before the final delivery date. If they don't close their positions themselves, they will be forced to close their positions by the exchange. Only the spot enterprises that apply for hedging qualification from the exchange and get approval can hold their positions until the final delivery date and enter the delivery procedure.

According to the regulations of the Chicago Board of Trade, the delivery date is the third day in the delivery process. The settlement company of the contract buyer must deliver the delivery notice together with the fully confirmed cheque to the settlement company office of the contract seller on the delivery date.

Investors engaged in futures trading, whether long or short, must deliver the open position if they do not reverse the position before the last trading day. The delivery system is an important bridge connecting the spot market and the futures market, and it is an important institutional guarantee to ensure the normal return of futures prices and the convergence with spot prices.

Futures delivery methods can generally be divided into two categories: physical delivery and cash delivery. Commodity futures are mostly delivered in kind and stock index futures are delivered in cash.

The reason is that the cost of physical delivery of constituent stocks in stock index futures according to the index weight is too high, and the actual operation is not feasible. Therefore, the delivery of stock index futures is settled in cash according to the level of spot index, thus ensuring the mandatory convergence of futures prices to spot prices.

Baidu encyclopedia-futures delivery day

People's Daily Online-Full Interpretation of Delivery Date of Stock Index Futures