National Futures Association is a Congressionally authorized selfregulatory organization of the United States futures industry. It’s mission is to provide innovative regulatory programs and services that ensure futures industry integrity, protect market participants and help NFA Members meet their regulatory responsibilities. This booklet has been prepared as a part of NFA’s continuing public education efforts to provide information about the futures industry to potential investors.
Futures markets have been described as continuous auction markets and as clearing houses for the latest information about supply and demand. They are worldwide meeting places of buyers and sellers of an everexpanding list of products that includes financial instruments such as U.S. Treasury bonds, stock indexes, and foreign currencies as well as traditional agricultural commodities, metals, and petroleum products. There is also active trading in options on futures contracts allowing option buyers to participate in futures markets with known risk.
Electronic information and communication technologies
are providing new and better trading tools and new and
more diverse trading opportunities. In some cases, entirely
electronic markets function alongside open-outcry markets
that have existed for more than a century and a half.
Electronic order placement is increasingly commonplace.
As such developments help make futures markets more useful
to more people, it follows that they have become more
widely and extensively used.
For more information on Buying
Options on Futures Contracts: A Guide to Uses and Risks
please read the pamphlet below.
http://www.nfa.futures.org/investor/UOR/uor.pdf
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