Market mood is volatileif a firm declares strong earnings and the Dow Futures soar, the odds are good that the stock market will follow suit. If an unexpected weather disaster closes down major shipping lines before the stock market starts, the Dow Futures could fall as investors anticipate trouble. As a result, once the opening bell rings, it’s possible that stocks will decline as well.
Why are futures prices falling?
Only at expiration must the index futures price equal the underlying index value. The futures contract has a fair value in relation to the index known as the basis at all other times. The basis takes into account predicted dividends foregone as well as financing cost differences between index futures and stock components. Because the dividend adjustment surpasses the financing cost when interest rates are low, the fair value of index futures is often lower than the index value.
What can we learn from the future?
Most people who follow the financial markets are aware that events in Asia and Europe can have an impact on the US market. How many times have you awoken to CNBC or Bloomberg reporting that European markets are down 2%, that futures are pointing to a weaker open, and that markets are trading below fair value? What happens on the other side of the world can influence markets in a global economy. This could be one of the reasons why the S&P 500, Dow 30, and NASDAQ 100 indexes open with a gap up or down.
The indices are a real-time (live) depiction of the equities that make up the portfolio. Only during the NYSE trading hours (09:3016:00 ET) do the indexes indicate the current value of the index. This means that the indexes trade for 61/2 hours of the day, or 27% of the time, during a 24-hour day. That means that 73 percent of the time, the markets in the United States do not reflect what is going on in the rest of the world. Because our stocks have been traded on exchanges throughout the world and have been pushed up or down during international markets, this time gap is what causes our markets in the United States to gap up or gap down at the open. Until the markets open in New York, the US indices “don’t see” that movement. It is necessary to have an indicator that monitors the marketplace 24 hours a day. The futures markets come into play here.
Index futures are a derivative of the indexes themselves. Futures are contracts that look into the future to “lock in” a price or predict where something will be in the future; hence the term. We can observe index futures to obtain a sense of market direction because index futures (S&P 500, Dow 30, NASDAQ 100, Russell 2000) trade practically 24 hours a day. Futures prices will fluctuate depending on which part of the world is open at the time, so the 24-hour market must be separated into time segments to determine which time zone and geographic location is having the most impact on the market at any given moment.
Is the stock market predicted by futures?
Stock futures are more of a bet than a prediction. A stock futures contract is an agreement to buy or sell a stock at a specific price at a future date, independent of its current value. Futures contract prices are determined by where investors believe the market is headed.
What is the distinction between the Dow Jones and Dow futures?
Dow futures are financial futures that allow investors to hedge or speculate on the future value of various Dow Jones Industrial Average market index components. E-mini Dow Futures are futures instruments generated from the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Is futures trading more volatile than stock trading?
So, why do so many people believe futures are riskier than stocks? Because of the futures markets’ use of leverage. Securities demand a 50% margin deposit, whereas futures contracts normally only require a 510% margin deposit. Furthermore, the broker pays the 50% of the securities transaction that is not paid by the customer, with interest levied to the consumer on the borrowed monies. The margin is an earnest money deposit in the futures markets, with no funds borrowed from the broker. In other words, the consumer is responsible for the full amount of the contract.
Futures markets have more leverage than securities markets due to lower margin requirements for futures.
In other words, the effect of existing price volatility is amplified by the narrower margin/higher leverage.
A contract for $15,000 might be purchased with $1,000 in futures margin.
If the contract value increases to $15,500, the contract value increases by 3.33 percent, but the margin increases by 50%.
A modest change in the total contract value translates into a significant increase in the margin deposited.
To summarize, futures prices are less volatile than stock prices; but, the leverage created by reduced margin requirements increases whatever volatility that exists.
Convinced?
What’s the difference between the S&P 500 and its futures?
Index futures track the prices of stocks in the underlying index, similar to how futures contracts track the price of the underlying asset. In other words, the S&P 500 index measures the stock prices of the 500 largest corporations in the United States.
Why is the futures price lower than the actual price?
If the striking price of a futures contract is lower than the current spot price, it indicates that the present price is too high and that the predicted spot price will fall in the future. Backwardation is the term for this condition.
What does the stock market’s future hold?
What Are Futures and How Do They Work? Futures are financial derivatives that bind the parties to trade an item at a fixed price and date in the future. Regardless of the prevailing market price at the expiration date, the buyer or seller must purchase or sell the underlying asset at the predetermined price.
How accurate are stock futures?
Futures, as previously indicated, are high-risk and volatile, however they do tend to become more steady as the expiration date approaches. Investors must assess whether futures are appropriate for their portfolio. One important factor to evaluate is how much risk they can take.
Some investors use futures to predict the direction in which a stock index will move when the market opens on a certain day. Futures trade and follow stock prices around the clock, whereas stocks only trade and track prices during the hours when the exchange they trade on is open for business.
Futures, on the other hand, aren’t always a good predictor of how equities will perform in the future. They are more of a bet on a stock or index moving in a specific way. Traders will occasionally correctly estimate the direction, but not always.