Summary
A futures exchange or futures market is a central financial exchange where people can trade standardized futures contracts defined by the exchange. Futures contracts are derivatives contracts to buy or sell specific quantities of a commodity or financial instrument at a specified price with delivery set at a specified time in the future. Futures exchanges provide physical or electronic trading venues, details of standardized contracts, market and price data, clearing houses, exchange self-regulations, margin mechanisms, settlement procedures, delivery times, delivery procedures and other services to foster trading in futures contracts. Futures exchanges can be organized as non-profit member-owned organizations or as for-profit organizations. Futures exchanges can be integrated under the same brand name or organization with other types of exchanges, such as stock markets, options markets, and bond markets. Non-profit member-owned futures exchanges benefit their members, who earn commissions and revenue acting as brokers or market makers. For-profit futures exchanges earn most of their revenue from trading and clearing fees. Futures exchanges establish standardized contracts for trading on their trading venues, and they usually specify the following: assets to be delivered in the contract, delivery arrangements, delivery months, pricing formula for daily and final settlement, contract size, and price position and limits. For assets to be delivered, futures exchanges usually specify one or more grades of a commodity acceptable for delivery and for any price adjustments applied to delivery. For example, the standard deliverable grade for CME Group's corn futures contract is "No. 2 Yellow", but holders of short positions in the contract can deliver "No. 3 Yellow" corn for 1.5 cents less than the contract delivery price per bushel. The locations where assets are delivered are also specified by the futures exchanges, and they may also specify alternative delivery locations and any price adjustments available when delivering to alternative locations.
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.