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Futures and options are the two most common forms of “Derivatives”.
1. Futures: A ‘Future’ is a contract to buy or sell the underlying asset for a specific price at a pre-determined time. If you buy a futures contract, it means that you promise to pay the price of the asset at a specified time. If you sell a future, you effectively make a promise to transfer the asset to the buyer of the future at a specified price at a particular time. Every futures contract has the following features:
- Buyer
- Seller
- Price
- Expiry
Some of the most popular assets on which futures contracts are available
- Equity stocks
- Indices
- Commodities
- Currency.
The difference between the price of the underlying asset in the spot market and the futures market is called ‘Basis’. (As ‘spot market’ is a market for immediate delivery) The basis is usually negative, which means that the price of the asset in the futures market is more than the price in the spot market. This is because of the interest cost, storage cost, insurance premium etc., That is, if you buy the asset in the spot market, you will be incurring all these expenses, which are not needed if you buy a futures contract. This condition of basis being negative is called as ‘Contango’.
2. Options: Options contracts are instruments that give the holder of the instrument the right to buy or sell the underlying asset at a predetermined price. An option can be a ‘call’ option or a ‘put’ option.
A call option gives the buyer, the right to buy the asset at a given price. This ‘given price’ is called ‘strike price’. It should be noted that while the holder of the call option has a right to demand sale of assets from the seller, the seller has only the obligation and not the right.
Similarly, a ‘put‘ option gives the buyer a right to sell the asset at the ‘strike price’ to the buyer. Here the buyer has the right to sell and the seller has the obligation to buy.
So in any options contract, the right to exercise the option is vested with the buyer of the contract. The seller of the contract has only the obligation and no right. As the seller of the contract bears the obligation, he is paid a price called as ‘premium‘. Therefore the price that is paid for buying an option contract is called a premium.
