I. Basic introduction
Futures is a trading method that spans time. By signing the contract, the buyer and the seller agree to deliver the specified quantity of spot at the specified time, price and other trading conditions. Futures are concentrated in futures exchanges and traded through standardized contracts. Some futures contracts can be traded through over-the-counter trading, which is called over-the-counter contract. According to the types of subject matter, futures can be divided into commodity futures and financial futures.
Second, related developments
The earliest futures market in history was Japan in the edo shogunate era. Because the price of rice at that time had a great influence on economic and military activities, rice merchants decided to buy and sell rice in stock according to the output of rice and the market's expectation of rice. In the1970s, Chicago Mercantile Exchange and CBOT innovated many futures products, and vigorously developed many financial futures products, making financial futures the mainstream of the futures market. In the1980s, the Chicago Stock Exchange began to develop electronic trading platforms. At the end of 1990, there was a trend of merger and acquisition among exchanges in various countries.
In ancient China, there was a commodity credit and forward contract system composed of grain depot and grain market. During the Republic of China, there were many futures exchanges in China and Shanghai, and the market was once crazy. The Manchukuo government also set up futures exchanges in Dalian, Yingkou, Fengtian and other northeast 15 cities, mainly engaged in soybean, bean cake and soybean oil futures trade. 1949 after the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), the futures exchange disappeared in Chinese mainland for decades. By 1992, Zhengzhou had set off another wave of speculation in futures, and various provinces and cities blossomed everywhere. At most, more than 50 futures exchanges opened at the same time, exceeding the sum of futures exchanges in other countries in the world. On 1994 and 1998, China the State Council strengthened supervision twice, suspended some futures products and ordered some exchanges to stop business. Since 1998, there are only three legal commodity futures exchanges in Chinese mainland: Shanghai Futures Exchange, Dalian Futures Exchange and Zhengzhou Futures Exchange. The former deals in energy and metal commodity futures, while the latter two deal in agricultural products futures. On September 8, 2006, China Financial Futures Exchange was established in Shanghai, and the first product launched was the Shanghai and Shenzhen 300 stock index futures.