Understanding a Futures Contract

Futures do not trade in shares like stocks. They trade in contracts. Each futures contract has a standard size that has been set by the futures exchange it trades on. For example, the contract size for gold futures is 100 ounces. That means when you are buying 1 contract of gold, you are really controlling 100 ounces of gold. If the price of gold moves $1 higher, that will affect the position by $100($1 x 100 ounces). You need to check each commodity or futures contract since most of them are different.

• You can visit the Profiles of Commodities to find more specific information on the contracts of each commodity.