Glossary of Terms
Futures and derivatives trading terminology
A comprehensive glossary of futures and derivatives trading terms. Click a letter below to navigate to terms beginning with that letter.
A
- Actuals
- Physical or cash commodities as distinguished from commodity futures contracts.
- Aggregation
- The policy under which all futures positions owned or controlled by one trader or a group of traders are combined to determine reporting status and speculative limit compliance.
- Arbitrage
- The simultaneous purchase and sale of similar commodities in different markets to take advantage of a price discrepancy.
- Ask
- The price at which a seller is willing to sell a futures contract. Also called the offer.
- At-the-Money
- An option whose strike price is equal to, or approximately equal to, the current market price of the underlying futures contract.
- Automated Trading System
- A trading system that uses computer algorithms to automatically generate and execute buy and sell orders based on predefined rules.
- Average Daily Volume
- The total number of contracts traded during a specified period divided by the number of trading days in that period.