When one party to a forward contract agrees to buy the underlying asset at a certain price at a certain date in the future, we call this party a bull. The other party agrees to sell the underlying assets at the same price on the same day, and this party is called a short position. The specific price in a forward contract is called the delivery price. When signing the contract, the delivery price should be chosen so that the value of the forward contract is zero for both parties. This means that you can go long or short in a forward contract for nothing. For the same reason, futures contracts are developed on the basis of forward contracts.
When investors sign forward or futures contracts, the cost is zero, but investors must pay a handling fee when purchasing futures contracts.