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 $500, and the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong is HK$ 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.

Stock index futures have at least the following characteristics:

(1) intertemporal. Stock index futures is a contract in which both parties agree to trade at a certain time in the future under certain conditions by predicting the changing trend of stock index. Therefore, the trading of stock index futures is based on the expectation of the future, and the accuracy of the expectation directly determines the profit and loss of investors.

(2) lever. Stock index futures trading does not need to pay the contract value in full, but only needs to pay a certain percentage of margin to sign a contract with greater value. For example, suppose the margin for stock index futures trading is 10%, and investors only need to pay 10% of the contract value to trade. In this way, investors can control the investment of 10 times of contract assets. Of course, while the income may increase exponentially, the losses that investors may bear are also multiplied.

(3) linkage. The price of stock index futures is closely related to the change of its basic asset-stock index. Stock index is the basic asset of stock index futures, which has a great influence on the price changes of stock index futures. At the same time, stock index futures are the expectation of future prices, so they also play a guiding role in stock indexes.

(4) High risk and risk diversity. The leverage of stock index futures determines that it is more risky than the stock market. In addition, there are certain market risks, operational risks and cash flow risks in stock index futures.