But the difference lies in what you are buying and what you are selling. In futures trade, one actually enters in a contract to buy or sell certain assets in future but price is decided at the time of making contract. Whereas, when we buy or sell stock, we are actually buying or selling the stock now. Let us understand the concept of futures trade in detail:
Futures Trading: It is a type of financial contracts in which two parties enter into agreement to buy or sell particular assets for future delivery at currently decided rate. It is basically buying of things of which seller has not produced at particular rate. It is basically hedging of risk and speculating rather than actual exchange of physical goods. Therefore, futures dealing is not only ruled by the buyers and seller rather by speculator as well. This practice of trading is extremely risky and liquid. At one stage one can make revenue from small investment and at other stage one can be looser. The process of this trading is very complex and difficult to be understood by ordinary people.
Assets of trading: The asset of trading can be both physical commodities and financial assets. Physical commodities include agricultural commodities, livestock& meat, energy, precious metals, rare metals, industrial metals, minerals, environmental commodities, etc. Financial assets sold in futures trade can be currencies, securities and intangible assets.
Types of futures traders: There are two major types of futures traders: Hedgers and Speculators. Hedgers are manufacturer of commodity and set deal to protect them from frequent change of prices. Besides physical commodities, banks, insurance companies, mutual funds, pension funds, etc also fall in the hedger’s frame of trading. Speculators are autonomous traders and investors who enter into agreement on their strong prediction to generate revenue from future contracts. Some facts about futures trading are •Market movements are too complex to predict precisely. Prices and trend varies marginally and frequently. These are the basics of Futures trading. One can easily get learn the basic facts about this trend of trading easily. People interested in this trading can invest money. One can also keep broker who have complete hold in the field. The risk of loss exists in futures trading. Past performance is not indicative of future results.