Futures is a derivative financial instrument, a contract to buy/sell an underlying asset on a certain date in the future, but at the current market price. Accordingly, the subject of such an agreement (underlying asset) can be stocks, bonds, goods, currency, interest rates, inflation, weather, etc.

A simple example. The farmer planted wheat. The price for this product on the market today, conditionally, is 100 rubles per ton. At the same time, forecasts come from all sides that the summer will be good, and the harvest in the fall will be excellent, which will invariably cause an increase in supply in the market and a fall in prices. The farmer does not want to sell grain in the autumn at 50 rubles per ton, so he agrees with a certain buyer that he will be guaranteed to supply 100 tons of grain in 6 months, but at the current price of 100 rubles. That is, our farmer thus acts as a seller of a futures contract.

Fixing the price of goods that will be delivered after a certain period, at the time of the conclusion of the transaction - this is the meaning of the futures contract.

Derivative financial instruments appeared along with trading. But initially it was a kind of unorganized market based on oral agreements between, for example, merchants. The first contracts for the supply of goods at some point in the future appeared with the letter. So, already on the cuneiform tablets of the centuries BC, which were found during excavations in Mesopotamia, one can find a certain prototype of the futures. By the beginning of the 18th century, the main types of derivative financial instruments appeared in Europe, and capital markets acquired the features of modern ones.

In Russia today, you can trade futures on the forward market of the Moscow Exchange - FORTS, where one of the most popular instruments is the futures on the RTS index. The volume of the futures market throughout the world today significantly exceeds the volume of real trading in underlying assets.

BCS is the market leader in terms of turnover on the derivatives market FORTS. Earn with us!

Technical details

Each futures contract has specification- a document fixed by the exchange itself, which contains all the main conditions of this contract: - name; — ticker; — type of contract (settlement/delivery); — size (number of units of the underlying asset per one futures contract); - term of circulation; - date of delivery; — minimum price change (step); is the cost of the minimum step.

So, the futures on the RTS index is now traded under the RIZ5 ticker: RI is the code of the underlying asset; Z is the code of the execution month (in this case, December); 5 - code of the year of contract execution (last digit).

Futures contracts are "settlement" and "delivery". The delivery contract implies the delivery of the underlying asset: we agreed to buy gold at a certain price in 6 months - get it, everything is simple here. The settlement futures does not imply any delivery. Upon the expiration of the contract, profit/losses are recalculated between the parties to the contract in the form of accrual and write-off of funds.

Example: We bought 1 futures on the Russian RTS index, assuming that by the end of the contract the domestic index will rise. The circulation period has ended, or, as is often said, the expiration date has come ( expiration date), the index has grown, we have accrued profit, no one has delivered anything to anyone.

The maturity of a futures is the period during which we can resell or buy this contract. When this period ends, all participants in transactions with the selected futures contract are required to fulfill their obligations.

The futures price is the price of the contract at the current moment. During the life of the contract, it changes, up to the expiration date. It is worth noting that the price of a futures contract differs from the price of the underlying asset, although it has a dense direct dependence on it. Depending on whether the futures is cheaper or more expensive than the price of the underlying asset, there are situations called "contango" and "backwardation". That is, the current price includes some circumstances that may occur, or the general mood of investors about the future of the underlying asset.

Benefits of Futures Trading

The trader gets access to a huge number of instruments traded on different exchanges around the world. This provides opportunities for broader portfolio diversification.

Futures have high liquidity, which makes it possible to apply various strategies.

Reduced commission compared to the stock market.

The main advantage of a futures contract is that you do not have to shell out as much money as you would if you were buying (selling) the underlying asset directly. The fact is that when you make a transaction, you use a guarantee collateral (GO). This is a refundable fee that the exchange charges when opening a futures contract, in other words, a certain deposit that you leave when making a transaction, the amount of which depends on a number of factors. It is easy to calculate that the leverage that is available in operations with futures allows you to increase the potential profit many times over, since GO is most often noticeably lower than the value of the underlying asset. However, do not forget about the risks.

It is important to remember that GO is not a fixed value and can change even after you have already bought a futures contract. Therefore, it is important to monitor the status of your position and the level of GO so that the broker does not close your position at the moment when the exchange slightly increased the GO, and there are no additional funds on the account at all. The BCS company provides its customers with the opportunity to use the service. Access to trading on the derivatives market is provided on the QUIK or MetaTrader5 terminals.

Trading Strategies

One of the main advantages of futures is the availability of various trading strategies. .

The first option is risk hedging. Historically, as we wrote above, it was this option that gave rise to this type of financial instrument. The first underlying asset was various agricultural products. Not wanting to risk their income, farmers sought to conclude contracts for the supply of products in the future, but at the prices agreed now. Thus, futures contracts are used as a way to reduce risks by hedging both real activity (production) and investment operations, which is facilitated by fixing the price right now for the asset we have chosen.

Example: we are now seeing significant fluctuations in the foreign exchange market. How to protect your assets during periods of such turbulence? For example, you know that in a month you will receive revenue in US dollars, and you do not want to take on the risk of changes in the exchange rate during this period of time. To solve this problem, you can use a futures contract for a dollar / ruble pair. Let's say you expect to receive $10,000 and the current exchange rate suits you. In order to hedge against an unwanted price change, you sell 10 contracts with the corresponding expiration date. Thus, the current market rate is fixed, and any change in it in the future will not affect your account. The position is closed immediately after you receive real money.

Or another example: You have a portfolio of Russian blue chips. You plan to hold the shares long enough, more than three years, to be exempt from paying personal income tax. But at the same time, the market has already risen quite high and you understand that a downward correction is about to happen. You can sell futures for your shares or the entire MICEX index as a whole, thereby insuring against a fall in the market. If the market declines, then you can close your short positions in futures, thereby leveling the current losses on the securities available in the portfolio.

Speculative transactions. The two main factors contributing to the growing popularity of futures among speculators are liquidity and large leverage.

The task of the speculator, as you know, is to profit from the difference in the purchase and sale prices. Moreover, the potential for profit here is maximum, and the terms for holding open positions are minimal. At the same time, in favor of the speculator, there is also such a moment as a reduced commission compared to the stock market.

Arbitration operations are another option for using futures, the meaning of which is to profit from the "game" on the calendar/intercommodity/intermarket spreads. .

To learn more about futures trading, you can read books like Tod Lofton's Futures Trading Fundamentals. In addition, you can visit various.

BCS Express

Exchange trading in futures (basics) video tutorial

In this article, I will talk about the features of futures trading, show by example how they differ from stocks.

How to trade futures

In my video lessons where I talk about trading on your own exchange account, recently, I began to pay more attention to futures speculation. From the questions and comments on the video tutorials, I realized that futures trading is of interest to my readers and subscribers, but is less clear to them than, for example, stock trading. To make it clearer, it is necessary to tell in more detail about the features of this instrument - the futures.

Comparison of stocks and futures

Futures is a derivative instrument. The word "derivative" means that this instrument is produced
from another product, which is its basis (underlying asset). For example, conditionally, milk is a derivative of a cow, and a cow is an underlying asset.

There are futures for stocks, where the underlying asset is shares, for commodities, where the underlying asset is commodities (oil, gas, gold, etc.), for currencies, where the underlying asset is currencies.

The main and most "delicious" distinguishing feature of futures from stocks is leverage - the ability to trade on borrowed funds. I will give an example of investing in futures and stocks.

Practical example of futures and stocks trading

An ordinary share of Sberbank costs 150 rubles. On the exchange, you can buy a lot consisting of 10 shares for 1,500 rubles. If the share price rises to 160 rubles, your profit will be:

(160 - 150) * 10 \u003d 100 rubles, the return on investment will be: (100 / 1,500) * 100 \u003d 6.66%

Sberbank common stock is the underlying asset of the June SRM7 futures, the price of which will be approximately 15,000 rubles (corresponding to a share price of 150). But in order to buy this futures, it is not necessary to have 15,000 rubles on the trading account, 10% of its value is enough (collateral or in short - G.O.). The collateral for a futures contract on ordinary shares of Sberbank is 2,068 rubles (set by the exchange arbitrarily). If you have an amount in your trading account that exceeds the G.O. (2,068 rubles), you can buy 1 futures.

The price of ordinary shares of Sberbank rose to 160 rubles, and the price of the futures, approximately, to 16,000.

Your profit will be: 16,000 - 15,000 = 1,000 rubles. Return on investment will be: (1,000/2,068)*100 = 48.35%

Note! The same amount of investment, but the yield is different - 6 and 48%

Beware of Futures

The basic postulate of economics is: “The higher the risk, the higher the potential profit should be.” This law also works in the opposite direction.

If you buy 1 lot of Sberbank common stock, you most likely won't lose all your money. You own an asset (share).

When you buy a futures contract, you run the risk of losing all your money with a slight fluctuation in its value. Leverage allows you to get extra returns, but it can destroy your account.

Technical feature of futures

There is one more technical detail that also needs to be discussed. When you buy a share for 160 rubles, information is entered into the depository that you own a share, the price of which is 160 rubles. The actual purchase price of a share changes only in one case - if you buy more of these shares for yourself - then the purchase price is calculated using the averaging formula.

Futures pricing is different. I'll give you an example.

You have 2,500 rubles in your account. You bought SRM7 futures at a price of 15,000 rubles. G.O. is reserved from the account. - 2,068 rubles, and the balance is: 2,500–2,068 \u003d 432 rubles. The futures price changes during the trading session, but is fixed during intermediate clearing (clearing is carried out at 14:05, 18:50, 23:50 Moscow time).

Suppose the price has risen and, at the time of clearing, is 15,500 rubles - in this case, 500 rubles of profit (called the variation margin) is credited to the account. Now the account has grown to: 500 + 432 = 932 rubles. But the purchase price has also changed - now it is the last clearing price (15,500 rubles). And, if the price drops to 15,250, the variation margin becomes negative, but, in fact, you are in the black, because you bought the futures at a price of 15,000 rubles.

If the futures price drops to the level: 15,000 – 432 = 14 568 , then your account has dried up, and the broker will urgently require you to deposit funds to secure an open position, or will forcibly close it.

The principle described above explains why the bid or ask price of the futures changes with each clearing, and a profitable position can appear to be losing because of the negative value of the variation margin.

There is only one way out - to record the entry points of your positions and monitor the status of the trading account.

The principle of futures trading

If you use all your funds only for speculating in futures, then most likely you will lose them, because the increased risk kills the account over time - this is elementary mathematics.

It is reasonable to place your funds in assets with different levels of risk. For example, put 70% of the funds in a bank deposit, invest 20% in stocks, and leave 10% for futures speculation.

There is also a risk-free investment management scheme, when you put all the funds on a bank deposit, and risk only the accrued interest - you buy futures with this money. If you lose your money, then the body of the deposit (initial investment amount) will remain unchanged. Such a scheme reduces the level of potential profit, but guarantees the safety of your funds.

The futures market is a rapidly growing financial investment sector. The main reasons for its popularity are high liquidity and a huge selection of different strategies. Despite this, for many investors it seems overly risky and complicated. Today I suggest you delve into the study of this segment and talk about futures trading for beginners.

Futures is a contract to buy or sell an asset in the future, but at the current price.

For a simpler understanding, I suggest you consider an example: a farmer sowed his fields with wheat, at the moment the cost of wheat is 200 rubles per ton. According to forecasts, the year is expected to be fruitful, without droughts and other natural disasters. Knowing this, the farmer assumes that there will be more wheat in the autumn than the demand for it, which, in turn, will lead to a decrease in its value. Having made such conclusions, the farmer decides to sell his future crop today at the current price, so as not to miscalculate in the future. He concludes an agreement with the buyer that in the fall he will sell him 100 tons of wheat at the current price. In this case, the farmer is the seller of the futures contract.

The main point of a futures contract is to receive a product in the future at the current price.

The very first financial instruments originated along with trading. Initially, it was a completely unorganized market, which was based on oral agreements between merchants. After the appearance of the letter, contracts for the supply of certain goods began to appear. By the 18th century, Europe already had the main types of financial instruments, which over time acquired the features of modern ones.

Futures Strategies

To date, there are a huge number of simple strategies for using futures.

The first strategy is to use futures to hedge risk. How this is done is best seen with a specific example. Suppose in a month you should receive revenue in dollars, but at the same time you are afraid that the exchange rate will change by this time. In such a situation, the best way out would be to purchase futures for the dollar / ruble currency pair, which will allow you to exchange dollars for rubles in a month at the rate at the time of purchasing the futures.

The second strategy for using futures is speculative transactions. In this case, the main task of speculators is to make a profit due to the difference in the cost of buying and selling futures. Also, a small commission size has a positive effect on the profitability of buying/selling futures.

The third strategy for using futures is arbitrage. In this case, profit is made due to the difference in intermarket spreads. When performing arbitrage operations, a trader purchases futures on one exchange and sells them on another, where the value of this asset is higher.

Futures trading for beginners

Futures trading for beginners begins with choosing the right instrument. Let's take gold as an example, but you can use any other product, including silver, oil, and so on. I suggest you use the largest exchange holdings for these purposes: CME and ICE. So, select the “Products” sub-item, then “metals” and in the window that appears, select “GC Gold” - this is a gold futures. Clicking on this will open a window with a link to the contract specification. In the table that appears, you can find a lot of useful information. Trading futures for beginners may seem quite complicated, but do not be afraid, as over time you will gain certain skills and will be able to handle it with ease.

Futures Trading Basics

To master the basics of futures trading, you need to learn how to analyze futures liquidity. To do this, you need to view all contracts, determine their volumes and find out the current exchange value. Another important point that you should pay attention to is the start and end time of trading in the futures you are interested in. This point is especially important if the delivery of the product is very soon. When trading futures, this should definitely be taken into account so as not to be left with a box of gold in an illiquid market and then think about where to get the money to pay for it.

Another important point is that you must learn how to correctly calculate the number of purchased contracts. When entering into contracts, you should always have spare cash in your account in case the market does not live up to your expectations. In the derivatives market, this amount is called margin. As soon as you create a deal, a certain amount of money is frozen on your account, the amount of which is determined by the exchange. You will not be able to use the frozen amount of money until your contract is in force. As soon as the contract is closed, the amount of money can be withdrawn.

Speculators in the futures market

A futures market without speculators is the same as an auction without buyers. In almost all markets, there are more speculators than real buyers. It is thanks to them that goods become liquid.

When speculators in the futures market enter into contracts, they knowingly put themselves at risk. They take risks in order to profit from price fluctuations.

I bring to your attention an example of successful trading: on May 1, a speculator bought a contract for copper at 105.25 (the margin was $1,500), after 5 days the contract was sold at a price of 111.70, resulting in a net profit of $1,612.5.

If the market did not live up to the speculator's expectations and he had to sell copper at 99.25, then he would have suffered a loss of $1,500, that is, he would have drained his entire initial amount of money. Speculators can be both ordinary people and corporate members of the exchange. Both of them have the same goal: to make money on contracts by buying when the price goes up and selling when the price goes down.

For a deeper dive into futures trading, I suggest you read the book written by Todd Lofton "Futures Trading Fundamentals". You can download it by following the link below.

Futures trading in the market- one of the profitable, but also risky ways for a trader to earn money. Before you start work in stock trading futures, you need to learn the basic steps and concepts about futures. What you need to know so that you don’t foolishly get into the money, fail the deal and ruin your relationship with the broker?

Let's start with the concept "future", - at first it will seem to you that this is a complex and professional abbreviation, but if translated from English, the meaning is “future”, everything else will become much simpler and clearer. Futures is a contract between a buyer and a seller, the terms of which are negotiated today and the buyer undertakes to fulfill them at the appointed time of sale. The price is negotiated earlier so that the buyer can insure himself against price increases in the future. Thus, the futures contract contains the following conditions:

• type of asset;
• the amount of the asset;
• deadline for the fulfillment of obligations;
• the price at which the delivery will take place.

To confirm that the buyer will definitely buy and the seller will deliver, the parties to the agreement make a deposit margin, which serves as a guarantee of fulfilling the conditions. After the fulfillment of obligations, it will be returned to you.

Mechanism of exchange futures trading

Trading on the exchange in futures begins with the submission of an application to the broker about the data of the goods, threshold values ​​or the current exchange price are negotiated. After that, during trading, the broker calls out his order to buy/sell contracts. In turn, other brokers who are interested in the same type of goods for purchase / sale offer their own price. When the price matches, the transaction is considered concluded and is registered by the exchange systems. After exchange trading in futures, brokers check the details of the transactions.

You can, at the moment you need, before the expiration of the futures contract, liquidate your obligations by concluding an offset transaction. In futures trading, an offset trade means the opposite of an earlier trade on the same contract, with the same maturity.

I would like to note that the buyer and the seller accept financial obligations not to each other, but to the clearing house, which acts as a third party. It registers exchange transactions, determines and collects collateral, liquidates mutually redeemable contracts, guarantees the fulfillment of the terms of contracts in futures trading. When registering a contract, each of the parties contributes a certain amount to the account of the clearing house.

There are several factors that affect futures trading in the market., such as: changes taking place in the conditions of economic development, the state of the monetary and financial system, the sufficiency of financial resources, the improvement of trading techniques, and others.

Now consider currency futures trading- this is the same trade, only currency. The first currencies in futures trading were the British pound, Canadian dollar, Deutsche mark, French franc, Japanese yen, Mexican peso and Swiss franc. One of the main difficulties that newcomers to futures trading face is understanding the quotation method. All currency futures are carried out on "American terms", i.e. in dollars for each unit of currency. Today, one of the largest commodity exchanges CME provides the best regulated foreign exchange market in the world, and the second largest, no less famous - the Forex electronic market. About 50 futures contracts and 30 options contracts based on world currencies are traded on this exchange. Trading on the exchange futures, today is most often carried out on the electronic platform Globex2, there is practically no voice trade today. Trading currency futures has significant advantages:

1. minimal chance of manipulation;
2. transparent pricing;
3. provide complete anonymity;
4. electronic access anywhere in the world, six days a week;
5. the ability to hedge currency risks.

Futures trading in the currency market is characterized by high liquidity. For example, the average daily turnover of all forward currency contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) exceeds $100 billion.

Futures trading on the currency market is suitable for those traders who need a security guarantee and a transparent financial instrument. Exchange trading in futures is controlled. The exchange carries out centralized clearing and does not allow price manipulations.

A novice trader can trade currency futures through the Meta Trader terminal.

According to many experts, the futures market today is the fastest growing sector of financial investments in the world. For the most part, this is ensured by a large selection of various strategies and decent liquidity. However, for many private investors, the market appears to be unnecessarily complex and risky. Is this true and how to trade futures?

What it is?

A futures is a financial instrument of a derivative type, namely a contract for the sale / purchase of an underlying asset in the future on a certain date, but at the current market value. The subject of this agreement (underlying asset) is most often stocks, currencies, bonds, interest rates, goods, inflation, weather, etc.

With a simple example, this can be explained as follows. A farmer grows wheat, its price on the market today, for example, is 100 units per ton. At the same time, there are massive forecasts that the weather will be fine all summer, due to which the harvest in the autumn is expected to be excellent, which will definitely cause an increase in the supply market and a subsequent drop in prices. In this regard, the farmer absolutely does not want to sell grain at 50 units per ton in the fall, and he agrees with some buyer that he will certainly sell him 100 tons of wheat in 6 months, but at the fixed price of 100 units today. In this example, the farmer is acting as the seller of the futures contract.

Fixing the cost of the goods, the delivery of which will occur after a certain period, at the time of the conclusion of the transaction, is the essence of the futures contract.

Such financial instruments arose along with trading. However, initially such a market had no organization and was based on oral agreements between its participants. Historically, the first contracts for the sale of goods at some point appeared simultaneously with writing. Archaeological excavations show that already on the cuneiform tablets of Mesopotamia there were some prototypes of the futures. Then, by the 18th century, most of the derivative financial instruments similar to modern ones appeared in the countries of Europe, and the capital markets were quite highly developed.

How can you trade futures today?

Nowadays, in Russia, futures can be traded on the derivatives market owned by the Moscow Exchange. It is called FORTS, and one of its most popular instruments is the futures on the RTS index. It is also worth noting that the volume of the global modern futures market far exceeds the volume of real trading in underlying assets. What are the technical details? How to trade futures on FORTS?

Any futures contract has a specification - a document that is fixed by the exchange itself and contains all its main conditions:

• ticker;
• Name;
• type of contract (delivery/settlement);
• size (number of units of the underlying asset in one futures contract);
• date of delivery;
• term of application;
• minimum price change (step);
• price of the minimum step.

What do these characteristics mean?

As already noted in the list, futures contracts can be "deliverable" or "settled". The first type involves the delivery of the underlying asset: for example, if there was an agreement in 6 months to purchase a precious metal at a certain price, it will be delivered. Settlement futures, in turn, does not imply any delivery. As soon as the term of the contract ends, there is a recalculation between the parties to the contract of profit / loss of funds in the form of their accrual and write-off.

For example, you bought 1 futures on the Russian RTS index, expecting that this index will increase by the end of the contract's circulation period. As soon as the circulation period expires, or, as it is also called, the expiration date comes, and the index rises, you will make a profit, but no deliveries will be made to your address. This is the key point of how to trade futures on FORTS.

The maturity of a futures is the period during which you have the opportunity to buy or resell this contract. After this period of time, all participants in transactions with a concluded futures contract must fulfill all obligations.

The futures price is the value of the contract at a given point in time. During its validity, it changes constantly until the expiration date. At the same time, the price of the futures contract does not correspond to the price of the underlying asset, despite the existing direct serious dependence on it. In relation to whether a future is more expensive or cheaper than the value of the underlying asset, situations called “backwardation” and “contango” are possible. This means that the current price is based on certain circumstances that may occur, as well as, in a more global sense, the mood of investors regarding the underlying future asset.

Strengths of futures trading

A market participant acquires access to a very large number of instruments that are traded on various exchanges in all countries of the world. This provides opportunities for broader portfolio diversification. Due to this, the trader has a lot of opportunities on how to trade futures.

Compared to the stock market, in this case there is a reduced commission.

Futures have high liquidity, which allows you to apply various strategies to them.

financial guarantee

The main advantage of a futures contract is that the trader does not need to spend as much money as it would be necessary to purchase (sell) the underlying asset directly. The whole point is that during the execution of a trading operation, you use the guarantee collateral (GO). It is a refundable fee charged by the exchange when opening a futures-type contract. In other words, this is some kind of collateral left during the operation. Its size is compiled depending on a number of factors and, most often, does not exceed 2-10% of the price of the underlying asset itself. As you can see, the leverage used in transactions with futures makes it possible to increase the potential profit many times over. At the same time, we must not forget about the risks involved.

First of all, GO is not a fixed value and its size can change at any time, even after you purchase a futures contract. For this reason, it is important to keep track of the state of your position and at the same time the level of GO. This is necessary so that the broker cannot close your position during that period of time when the exchange only slightly increased the GO, and there are no additional funds in your account at all.

Trading Strategies

As already noted, one of the main positive qualities of futures is the possibility of using a variety of trading strategies. How to trade futures and why is this trading so effective?

The first is risk hedging. As follows from the historical background, it was this option that caused the appearance of such a financial instrument. Initially, the underlying assets were various agricultural products. Since farmers did not want to risk their profits, they sought to conclude contracts for the sale of their products in the future, but at prices agreed at the time of the transaction. This means that futures contracts are used as a risk reduction method. This is achieved both by hedging real production or other activities, and various investment operations (due to fixing the available price for the selected asset).

Secondly, these are speculative transactions. The popularity of futures is growing in this area due to two factors - significant "leverage" and high liquidity. The main task in resale is to profit from the price difference. It is also worth noting that the profitable potential in this area is high, and the terms of holding positions are very short. Reducing the commission here also plays a big role (compared to the stock market).

To understand the question of which futures to trade, you should carefully study the features of each type of such trading.

Futures contracts for indices (RTS, MICEX and others)

These are settlement type contracts in which the underlying asset is the value of the index (RTS, MICEX, etc.). Exchange fees for such transactions vary depending on the chosen broker.

The most liquid and risky instrument is the futures on the RTS index. How to trade it in the modern market? There are many opportunities for such trading, but scalping and intraday trading are the most common. The second is the most preferred for beginner traders.

Futures on the RTS index - how to trade?

The RTS Index represents the 50 largest issuers of the Russian market, for the totality of which a futures contract was created. If one expects that the market will rise in the near future, he buys this contract (which means going long). Those who expect the index to fall, sell by opening a short position.

Speaking about how to trade futures on the MICEX, it is worth noting that this happens in a similar way. At the same time, it does not have the same high liquidity as compared to the RTS. In addition, other exotic indices are also used in trading, one of the most famous among them is BRIC (which means Brazil, Russia, India, China). Other contracts of this type are little known in Russia.

Futures contract for shares

Experts often recommend that novice traders start with this type of futures, since stock contracts are closely related to the stock chart. If you analyze them through fundamental or technical analysis, you can easily figure out what is happening with futures. At its core, stock futures are blue chips and some second-tier values. It is difficult to analyze them, since such graphs are very short.

Futures contract for currency

Where to trade futures of this type? As already mentioned, FORTS supports all types of such transactions, including currency transactions. Today, futures transactions for dollars against the ruble, as well as currency pairs with the dollar and the euro or the British pound are common in Russia. Typically, the financial leverage in such contracts is 1:20.

Commodity futures contract

Trading these particular futures is widespread, since the basics of such trading seem to be the most understandable and accessible, unlike indices or stocks. When making a choice of which futures to trade, many tend to this type of transactions. For example, it is easy to follow a logical chain - if there is a crop failure at the end of summer, this means its future growth in price, which suggests the prospect of buying a grain futures contract. Since commodity price fluctuations are more obvious, it is much easier to calculate potential risks and rewards in this case.

How does futures trading work?

In order to trade futures, the QUIK terminal is used. Its settings occur in semi-automatic mode. How to trade futures in QUIK? First of all, you must open the option "Current parameter table" and select the required values. To make them, you need to find generally accepted markings in the list and put them in a list called "Line Headers". For example, you have chosen a futures contract for the RTS index. How to trade, QUIK will set up automatically, you only need to enter the initial basic parameters.