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A contract, which is usually an agreement between two parties to buy and sell an asset at a specified time at a specified price, is known as futures trading. Futures trading is generally carried out on a futures exchange. A futures contract has a standardized date and month of delivery, price and quantity. There are mainly two types of futures trading contracts available in a futures market as those require a physical delivery and those require a cash settlement. The contracts which require a physical delivery are known as commodity futures and include futures for agricultural commodities like rice, wheat, sugar, oats; energy commodities like natural gas, crude oil, heating oil and others such as animals, wood etc. Futures contract which require a cash settlement are known as financial futures and involve treasury notes, bonds, mutual funds etc. Futures are different from forwards in the sense that margin and delivery requirements are different. The futures exchange gives certain standard features for a contract to facilitate liquidity in futures trading. A futures contract may be set before maturity by having an equal and opposite transaction, which is the way majority of the transactions are held. The buying of futures, in the commodity futures market, is known as "going long" and selling the futures is known as "going short". According to the trading style followed, online futures traders can be broadly classified in to two as hedgers and speculators. Hedgers are traders who trade for price certainty. Usually they are the issuer of futures contracts, who do so to tackle the potential loss at the actual trading time of the underlying commodity. Speculators are the actual traders buying, holding and selling these contracts for profit. Speculators include all types of traders; arbitragers, day traders, swing traders and position traders. Since many types of players are involved in trading futures, it helps in the process of proper price discovery. Apart from this, futures contracts also help in hedging of price risk commodity. Futures contracts are highly useful for the producer due to the fact that he gets an idea of the price that may prevail, which in turn helps him quote a realistic price. Online futures trading has a lot of advantages. The prices of the derivatives traded on the futures market are updated immediately and in real time through online futures trading. Due to this interactivity the individual trader gets transparency of the market and good trade speed .It is possible to access the futures market from any computer with an Internet connection through online futures trading and trade on the important electronic futures exchange, around the globe.
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