The advantages of opening an index futures market earlier than the spot market are: first, the futures market can respond to the market information from the closing of the previous day to the opening of the next day, and effectively play the role of price discovery; Second, the early opening of the futures market can help the spot market to establish an equilibrium price before opening, thus reducing the volatility of the spot market when it opens.
The advantages of the index futures market closing later than the spot market are as follows: first, it reduces the volatility of the spot market closing; The second is to provide investors with hedging tools after the spot market closes; Third, it is convenient for investors to adjust the hedging strategy according to the stock assets and various situations in the spot market.
Stock index futures are futures with the stock market index as the subject matter. The price level of the stock market index after a certain period of trading between the two parties shall be delivered by cash settlement of the price difference.
Stock index futures refer to financial futures contracts with stock price index as the subject matter. In specific transactions, the value of stock index futures contracts is calculated by multiplying the index points by the unit amount specified in advance. For example, the Standard & Poor's Index stipulates that each point represents US$ 250, and the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong is HK$ 50. Generally, March, June, September and 65438+February are the cycle months of stock index contract trading, and some of them are traded every month of the year. The settlement is usually based on the closing index of the last trading day.
The essence of stock index futures trading is a process in which investors transfer their expected risk of the whole stock market price index to the futures market, and the risk is offset by the trading operations of investors who have different judgments on the stock market trend. Like stock futures trading, it belongs to futures trading, except that the object of stock index futures trading is stock index, which is based on the change of stock index and settled in cash. There are no real stocks on both sides, only stock index futures contracts can be bought and sold at any time.