Futures are mainly not commodities, but standardized tradable contracts with cotton, soybeans, oil and other popular products and financial assets such as stocks and bonds as the target. Therefore, the subject matter can be commodities (such as gold, crude oil and agricultural products) or financial instruments. The delivery date of futures can be one week later, one month later, three months later or even one year later.

A contract or agreement to buy or sell futures is called a futures contract. The place where futures are bought and sold is called the futures market. Investors can invest or speculate in futures.

The operation process of the futures market is as follows: Suppose Xiao Zhang buys 5 tons of copper in an exchange, the price is 60,000 yuan/ton, the total transaction amount is 300,000 yuan, the deposit of 10% (30,000 yuan) is paid, and the futures settlement price is 6 1000 yuan/ton, and you choose to sell it, then you earn 5,000 yuan (5. Then, there will be 35,000 yuan in your personal account, because the margin will rise with the total value of futures, so your margin needs 30,500 yuan (6 1000 * 5 * 10%), and the remaining 4,500 yuan can be withdrawn by investors themselves.