Modern futures market originated from the rice futures traded in Japan since the middle of the XVIII century. In the U.S., a country on the stock exchanges which are currently carried out most of the futures transactions, trade in such contracts for grains began in the middle of the XIX century in Chicago. Currently, trade in financial derivatives, to which are futures and options, is the leading industry in terms of money of the world, the contracts are traded on a huge range of commodities, financial instruments, currencies, indices. Range of available markets is increasing every year.
Futures contract - is a standardized agreement between two parties that obligates one party to sell and another to buy a certain quantity of goods at a set price on a specified future date. The term "product" is usually understood to a wide range of assets: currency, debt securities, stock indexes the world's largest economies (eg, S & P 500, Dow Jones, FTSE, DAX) and products (eg, energy resources: oil, gas, petrol), metals ( as precious and industrial), agricultural market (wheat, corn, soy, sugar, coffee, cotton, wood).

Futures contracts are deliverable and nepostavochnymi. Closure of procurement contracts can be accomplished in two ways: the supply of an asset or transaction, within the meaning of the opposite of the original (so-called offset deals), respectively, closing nepostavochnogo contract is only possible by means of a reverse transaction. The market value of the futures contract depends on the current supply and demand: If you are wanting to buy more than willing to sell, the price will rise, which will attract the entry of new vendors and restore the balance between buyers and sellers.
Option on a futures contract, unlike themselves futures contracts, involves not the obligation, and the right to buy or sell futures at the strike price before the due date (or her) with the payment for a certain amount, called the premium.
Derivatives market participants can be divided into two groups - speculators and hedgers.

Speculators are trying to profit from changes in the value of the goods in time. The nature of futures trading (the concept of initial and maintenance margin for the transaction) suggests the possibility to operate with large funds (or control) in the presence of relatively small deposits in the brokerage account. So, having the account an amount of 3,000 dollars, you can buy / sell 125,000 euros gold at $ 50 000, oil at 45,000 dollars. In addition, futures contracts allow traders to play as bullish, and in the fall of the market, yielding benefits for any "weather." Thus, the futures industry has attracted large amounts of risky investments. The result of the growth in funds, revolving in this environment is that the derivative markets at the moment are probably the most liquid in the world, thereby reducing the transaction costs of the trader, for easy opening and closing positions.

Hedgers, unlike speculators, use of financial derivatives markets in order to reduce the risks associated with work in the markets of the underlying asset. Hedging involves occupation of a futures position opposite to that available in the spot market. Thus, the airline to control risks rising fuel prices, should take a long position on it. Currently, hedge risk management is widely used by companies of all sizes - from small businesses to large corporations.
The advantages of stock trading in futures and options
Commodity derivatives markets , which include futures and options, provides its members a number of unique advantages:
• A huge number of instruments traded on dozens of exchanges, located around the world, available for online trading from one account.
• Margin trading, significantly extending the investment opportunities.
• Full transparency of transactions and legal protection.
• The trader automatically increases your chances that he will not miss the best trading opportunity afforded by the market, if expanding the range of available tools, introduces diversity in its trading palette that keeps track of markets, each characterized by its unique volatility, historical trending, or predisposition to bellhop character movements and other parameters.
• In addition, commodity and stock markets are often more attractive to traders because of its volatility (volatility). After all, she provides the necessary conditions for a profit. At these markets, the movement of a few percent per day - is not rare, but medium-term movements that we can often see on the goods, you will never see in other markets.
Note that some policies can be implemented only on the futures market instruments, which include futures and options: for example, different types of calendar spreads, not to mention all the variety of option strategies.
In summary, we note that the derivatives market - a unique system that allows to realize profitable, diversified trading strategies that can be used as aggressive speculators, and conservative risk managers.