If you have little exposure to the futures market, you may, at first, feel perplexed by Dow Futures. To help provide clarity, here are some of the basics. Alternate Name: Dow Jones Futures
How Dow Futures Work
To understand how Dow Futures work, one basic approach is to think of a farmer and a grocer. The grocer knows that the farmer will have a crop of soybeans to be harvested soon, so they offer to buy 100 bushels of soybeans in January for $900. If the farmer agrees, the contract has been made, and each party waits for January. No matter the price of soybeans in January, the price set is what the grocer pays. A futures contract is a legally binding agreement between two parties (which can be individuals or institutions) in which they agree to exchange money or assets based on the predicted prices of an underlying index.
Where Do Dow Futures Trade?
The position you take on a trade is the purchase price you have agreed upon with the seller. Dow Futures contracts trade on an exchange, meaning that the exchange is who you deal with when you create your position (your price and contract) on the commodity. The exchange exists to keep trading fair and eliminate risk—such as one party not delivering on the contract. By having all of the futures contracts cleared through the exchange, this risk is eliminated because the exchange serves to guarantee every position.
When Can You Trade?
Dow Futures start trading each day on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) at 7:20 a.m. Central Time (8:20 a.m. Eastern Time), which is an hour and ten minutes before the stock market opens. This allows trading to take place so reporters and professionals can get an idea of market sentiment (the attitude of investors on prices and market potential). Market sentiment is fickle—if a company reports huge earnings, and the Dow Futures skyrocket, the odds are good that the stock market itself will rise as well. If an unexpected weather event shuts down major shipping lanes before the stock market opens, it could cause the Dow Futures to drop, because investors begin anticipating problems. This creates the possibility of stocks also falling once the opening bell rings.
Buying Futures With Leverage
Dow Futures have built-in leverage, meaning that traders can use significantly less money to trade futures while receiving exponential returns or losses. This can allow traders to make substantially more money on price fluctuations in the market than they could by simply buying a stock outright. As a result, a trader who believed the market were going to rally could simply acquire Dow Futures with a smaller amount of money and make a huge profit as a result of the leverage factor. If the market were to return to a level of 14,000 from the current 8,000, for instance, each Dow Futures contract would gain $60,000 in value (6,000 point rise x 10 leverage factor = $60,000). It’s worth noting that the opposite can also easily happen. If the market were to fall, the Dow Futures trader could lose huge sums of money.
