Trading and Investing (16) - InformedTrades: Introduction to Futures Trading (23) - 2h

 For this course, the author suggests you to open a demo futures account from here.

(Source: Wikipedia)

A futures contract is a standardized contract to buy or sell a specified commodity of standardized quality at a certain date in the future and at a market-determined price (the futures price). The contracts are traded on a futures exchange. Futures contracts are not "direct" securities like stocks, bonds, rights or warrants. They are still securities, however, though they are a type of derivative contract.

The price is determined by the instantaneous equilibrium between the forces of supply and demand among competing buy and sell orders on the exchange at the time of the purchase or sale of the contract.

In many cases, the underlying asset to a futures contract may not be traditional "commodities" at all – that is, for financial futures, the underlying asset or item can be currencies, securities or financial instruments and intangible assets or referenced items such as stock indexes and interest rates.

The future date is called the delivery date or final settlement date. The official price of the futures contract at the end of a day's trading session on the exchange is called the settlement price for that day of business on the exchange^[1].