Financial Futures - Futures contracts
concerned with transactions of financial instruments,
as distinct from physical commodities. Financial futures
available in Australia include bank bill futures,
Share Price Index (SPI) futures and Commonwealth bond
futures. The essential value of financial futures
is that they allow investors to hedge against adverse
movements in interest rates or share prices. Financial
futures can also be used by speculators who, while
having no involvement as buyers or sellers in the
underlying securities, can trade in futures as a means
of profiting from expected price movements.
