Futures cannot be held for a long time like stocks. Futures have a contract date, generally the longest is not more than 1 year, and the trading period is 1 year. ?
Futures and spot are completely different. Spot is actually a tradable commodity. Futures are mainly not commodities, but standardized tradable contracts based on some popular products such as cotton, soybeans and oil and financial assets such as stocks and bonds.
a
Therefore, the subject matter can be commodities (such as gold, crude oil and agricultural products) or financial instruments.
When you are familiar with the trading rules of futures, you can understand that futures have the characteristics of maturity. Stocks can be held for a long time, but futures are different. Although futures can be long-term, it does not mean holding the same contract.
Usually, you should also pay attention to the edges. For example, when you are doing long-term business, you should have enough margin, or you may be forced to close your position because of insufficient margin when the futures price fluctuates reversely. Futures is a margin transaction, which is generally a lever with a magnification of about ten times.
Light warehouse trading is very important, which is the basis of long-term trading. In addition, for long-term transactions, it is necessary to understand the characteristics of the contract expiration date and change the month in time.
b
Retail investors cannot participate in futures delivery, so they can buy and sell freely before the contract expires. For example, the main contracts of agricultural futures are generally 1, May and September contracts, and the latest main contracts can generally last for several months. Pay attention to your manual liquidation before maturity.
In futures trading, futures contracts have a time limit. At present, the term of domestic commodity futures contracts is 12- 18 months. When the contract expires, all open commodity futures contracts must be delivered in kind, and special invoices for value-added tax need to be delivered or received. Therefore, if investors don't want or can't make physical delivery, can't deliver or collect special VAT invoices, they should close their positions before the time limit stipulated by the exchange. Not in the stock market, as long as listed companies do not withdraw from the market, they can always hold stocks.
c
If investors want to hold a commodity futures contract all the time to meet the needs of long-term commodity investment, they can close their positions near the delivery deadline and hold the contract in a further month by buying and selling in the market.