In the current investment market, the most well-known categories are stocks and futures. Many people are very familiar with stocks, which refer to a company listing on a qualified securities exchange after meeting certain conditions and trading a portion of its shares through the market. Compared to stocks, futures have far fewer investors and less capital due to their highly flexible trading mechanisms, leverage, and numerous influencing factors. Even so, many futures varieties remain highly important in today's market, and stock index futures contracts are one of them.

1. What are stock index futures contracts?

Futures emerged relatively early in capital markets. Their essence is a trading behavior that provides investors with standardized contracts based on the future price of a specific commodity or virtual commodity at a predetermined time. The original purpose of futures was to lock in future product prices and help industrial enterprises reduce material procurement costs. With the rapid development of financial markets, the functions of futures have continued to expand, leading to innovative trading products like stock index futures, which are a typical example. In short, stock index futures are futures products that use a specific stock index (e.g., the S&P 500) from a securities market as the contract's underlying asset, with the index's price movement at a future time as the trading price.

2. What are the more important stock index futures varieties?

Stock index futures contracts first appeared at the Kansas Board of Trade in the U.S. nearly 40 years ago. Over this long period of development, many economically advanced countries have introduced such futures varieties. The more influential ones include: the U.S. S&P 500 futures, Nasdaq 100 futures, Dow Jones 300 futures, Japan's Nikkei 225 futures, Germany's DAX futures, and China's CSI 300 futures.

3. How can beginners invest in overseas stock index futures?

Domestic stock index futures varieties are very limited, with a minimum investment threshold of 500,000 RMB, and the market's degree of liberalization urgently needs improvement. Against this backdrop, many investors are interested in overseas stock index futures. For beginners, the first step is to thoroughly understand the specifics, trading rules, and risks of different overseas varieties. The second step is to choose a suitable trading platform.