Futures are derivative contracts that derive value from a financial asset, such as a traditional stock, bond, or stock index, and thus can be used to gain exposure to various financial instruments, including stocks, indexes, currencies, and commodities.
Futures are a common vehicle for hedging and managing risk; If someone is already exposed to or earns profits through speculation, it is primarily due to their desire to hedge risks.
Future contracts, because of the way they are structured and traded, have many inherent advantages over trading stocks.
Key Takeaways
- Stock investors may have heard the term “futures” or “futures market,” but thought to themselves that these esoteric derivatives are not for them.
- While futures can pose unique risks for investors, there are several benefits to futures over trading straight stocks.
- These advantages include greater leverage, lower trading costs, and longer trading hours.
Eight Advantages of Trading Futures
Futures Are Highly Leveraged Investments
To trade futures, an investor has to put in a margin — a fraction of the total amount (typically 10% of the contract value). The margin is essentially collateral that the investor has to keep with their broker or exchange in case the market moves opposite to the position they have taken and they incur losses. This may be more than the margin amount, in which case the investor has to pay more to bring the margin to a maintenance level.
What trading futures essentially means for the investor is that they can expose themself to a much greater value of stocks than they could when buying the original socks. And thus their profits also multiply if the market moves in his direction (10 times if the margin requirement is 10%).
For example, if the investor wants to invest $10,000 into the S&P 500 index they can either buy 25 shares of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) priced at around $400 per share, or 1 E-mini futures contract with a margin requirement of $10,000. If SPY increased to $401, the investor would have made $25. Over that same period, the E-mini contract would have increased from $4000 to $4010 resulting in a $500 gain (1 index point = $50.00).
Future Markets Are Very Liquid
Future contracts are traded in huge numbers every day and hence futures are very liquid. The constant presence of buyers and sellers in future markets ensures market orders can be placed quickly. Also, this entails that the prices do not fluctuate drastically, especially for contracts that are near maturity. Thus, a large position may also be cleared out quite easily without any adverse impact on price.
In addition to being liquid, many futures markets trade beyond traditional market hours. Extended trading in stock index futures often runs around the clock.
Commissions and Execution Costs Are Low
Commissions on future trades are very low and are charged when the position is closed. The total brokerage or commission is usually as low as 0.5% of the contract value. However, it depends on the level of service provided by the broker. An online trading commission may be as low as $5 per side, whereas full-service brokers may charge $50 per trade.
Note that online brokers are increasingly offering free stock and ETF trading across the board, making the transaction cost proposition for futures a bit less attractive than it had been in the past.
Speculators Can Make Fast Money
An investor with good judgment can make quick money in futures because essentially they are trading with 10 times as much exposure as with normal stocks. Also, prices in the future markets tend to move faster than in the cash or spot markets.
A word of caution, however: Just as wins can come quicker, futures also magnify the risk of losing money. That said, it could be minimized by using stop-loss orders. Because futures are highly leveraged, margin calls might come sooner for traders with wrong-way bets, making them potentially a more risky instrument than a stock when markets move fast.
Futures Are Great for Diversification or Hedging
Futures are very important vehicles for hedging or managing different kinds of risk. Companies engaged in foreign trade use futures to manage foreign exchange risk, interest rate risk by locking in an interest rate in anticipation of a drop in rates if they have a sizable investment to make, and price risk to lock in prices of commodities such as oil, crops, and metals that serve as inputs. Futures and derivatives help increase the efficiency of the underlying market because they lower unforeseen costs of purchasing an asset outright. For example, it is much cheaper and more efficient to go long in S&P 500 futures than to replicate the index by purchasing every stock.
Future Markets Are More Efficient and Fair
It is difficult to trade on inside information in future markets. For example, who can predict for certain the next Federal Reserve policy action? Unlike single stocks that have insiders or corporate managers who can leak information to friends or family to front-run a merger or bankruptcy, futures markets tend to trade market aggregates that do not lend themselves to insider trading. As a result, futures markets can be more efficient and give average investors a fairer shake.
Futures Contracts Are Basically Only Paper Investments
The actual stock/commodity being traded is rarely exchanged or delivered, except on the occasion when someone trades to hedge against a price rise and takes delivery of the commodity/stock on expiration. Futures are usually a paper transaction for investors interested solely on speculative profit. This means futures are less cumbersome than holding shares of individual stocks, which need to be kept track of and stored someplace (even if only as an electronic record). Companies need to know who owns their shares in order to pay out dividends and to record shareholder votes. Futures contracts don’t need any of that record keeping.
Short Selling Is Easier
One can get short exposure on a stock by selling a futures contract, and it is completely legal and applies to all kinds of futures contracts. On the contrary, one cannot always short sell all stocks, as there are different regulations in different markets, some prohibiting short selling of stocks altogether. Short selling stocks requires a margin account with a broker, and to sell short, you must borrow shares from your broker to sell what you don’t already own. If a stock is hard to borrow, it can be expensive or even impossible to short-sell those shares.
The Bottom Line
Futures have great advantages that make them appealing to all kinds of investors—speculative or not. However, highly-leveraged positions and large contract sizes make the investor vulnerable to huge losses, even for small movements in the market. Thus, one should strategize and do due diligence before trading futures and understand both their advantages as well as their risks.