First Notice Day & Last Trading Day

Metals futures

New York Mercantile Exchange
New York Mercantile Exchange is the most active metal trading exchange, followed by the London Metal Exchange and the Tokyo Commodity Exchange. The most active metals futures included: gold, silver, copper, palladium, platinum, lead, zinc, tin and nickel. Gold, silver, platinum and palladium are called precious metals futures.

London Metal Exchange
The London Metal Exchange (LME) is the futures exchange, having the world's largest market in options and futures contracts on base metals and other metals. The LME offers contracts with short term expiry dates of three months from trade date, up to long term monthly contracts of 123 months. It also allows for physical trading.

Tokyo Commodity Exchange
The Tokyo Commodity Exchange, Inc. (TOCOM) is Japan's largest derivatives platform, offering futures contracts on precious metals, oil-related energy products and rubber.

Main products:

Copper futures
The most active copper futures trading centers are the New York Mercantile Exchange and the London Metal Exchange. The applications of copper are wire and cable, electromagnets, vacuum tubes, car parts and etc. Copper earns the benefits of low cost, electrical and heat conductivity. Copper is also a tractable metal. Through melting, casting, rolling and other processes to change the shape easily, it can allow people making different tools and it is widely used in daily life.

Gold futures
Gold futures are hedging tools for commercial producers and users of gold. They also provide global gold price discovery and opportunities for portfolio diversification. In addition, they offer ongoing trading opportunities, since gold prices respond quickly to political and economic events. They are also served as an alternative to investing in gold bullion, coins, and mining stocks.

Silver futures
Silver futures are important tool for silver trading. In 1963, New York Mercantile Exchange lunched the silver futures. In addition, Japan Tokyo Commodity Exchange TOCOM launched silver future in 1984. The distinct between NYMEX and TOCOM silver contracts is the difference in quantity, which provides the market participant more options.

Palladium futures
Palladium is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal. It is a soft metal and its nature is similar to platinum. It is less in density and lower melting point than platinum but it is slightly harder than platinum. Nowadays, only few countries such as Russia and South Africa have palladium mining. The application of palladium is not only jewelry but also automotive catalyst, electronic and dental medical equipment and etc.

Platinum futures
Platinum is one of the precious metals, which is 30 times rare than gold. The platinum production is only 160 tons annually, which is less than gold’s 1500 tons. Presently, only 60 countries have platinum mining. Most of these mines are in the South Africa and Russia, and their reserves occupy around 98% of the world.

Influence factors

• The status of the production country

• Recycling and supply

• Overseas market prices

• The status of industrial demand

• Global economic situation

Stock index futures

The Dow Jones Industrial Average
The Dow Jones Industrial Average Index (DJIA) is one of the share market indexes, created by the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones & Company founder Charles Dow. Until now, the index contains the top 30 largest capital and the famous companies in the United States. It is the benchmark of the industry development in U.S stock market. It is also the most representative market index.

Standard & Poor 500 index
Standard & Poor 500 index began on 1957, which was an American stock market index. It is based on the market capitalizations of 500 large companies, and all are listed on the NYSE or NASDAQ. S&P 500 diverse constituency and weighting methodology. It is one of the most commonly used equity index calculation method. With this index, investors evaluate the U.S. stock market and treat it as a bellwether for the U.S. economy.

Nasdaq 100 index
The NASDAQ-100 Index launched on February 1985, which included 100 of the largest domestic and international non-financial securities. The components of the index are listed on NASDAQ Stock exchange. Nasdaq 100 index is a modified market capitalization weighted index. It can avoid index being affected by the fluctuation of few large capital companies. The base price of the index was initially set at 250.

Nikkei 225 Index Futures (USD)
The Nikkei 225 index is traded in U.S. CME, which includes the top 225 blue-chip companies listed on Tokyo Stock Exchange via using arithmetic average. Japan stock market is the second largest securities market in the world. Its futures trading volume also holds a leading position in Asia. Nikkei 225 index futures provide investors an instrument for arbitrage and hedge activities.

SGX FTSE China A50 Index Futures
SGX FTSE China A50 Index Futures are the world’s most active offshore futures tracking the China A-share market. The contracts act as hedging tool for product issuers and investment tool for investors who lack off shore access. They also act as arbitrage tool for traders between related products and off shore equities. Investors can also use the SGX FTSE China A50 Index Futures contracts together with the USD/CNH and CNY/USD FX Futures contracts to comprehensively manage Chinese equity and currency exposures.

Influence factors

• Global and U.S. economic growth

• Enterprise profit prospects

• The inflation outlook and economic data

• The U.S. dollar and monetary policy

• International and U.S. political factors

• Global disaster, geopolitical disputes and breaking news

Energy futures

Crude oil
Crude oil is the major raw material in producing petroleum products. After refining, crude oil can make following products:

• Petroleum gas: used for heating, cooking, making plastics

• Naphtha or Ligroin: will be further processed to make gasoline

• Gasoline: motor fuel

• Kerosene: fuel for jet engines and tractors

• Fuel oil or heavy oil: used for diesel fuel and heating oil

• Lubricating oil: used for motor oil, grease, other lubricants

• Fuel oil: used for industrial fuel

Natural gas
Natural gas is a gaseous fossil fuel, which is composed of methane and methane in the rock or coal bed. It is often used to power natural gas powered engines, electricity generation, domestic cooking and heating fuel. Compared to crude oil, natural gas is much cleaner and less greenhouse gas emission.

Gasoline
After refining, crude oil generates 50% of gasoline and 25% heating oil. Gasoline is a volatile, flammable liquid. It is also the most important light oil product. It can be used as aviation gasoline, motor gasoline and solvent naphtha and etc.

Heating oil
Heating oil is mainly used for home heating in the North American. About 85% heating oil is produced in the U.S. The others are imported from Canada, Venezuela and the Virgin Islands. The demand of heating oil would generally increase in winter to ensure warm keeping.

Influence factors

• American oil supply and demand

• The oil exporting countries geopolitical and export restrictions

• OPEC's oil export policy

• The operation of production and oil refining equipment

• The alternative products: such as solar energy, nuclear energy, natural gas etc.

• International energy and environmental policy

• International economic situation and development

• The seasonal factors

Agricultural futures

Corn futures
Corn is the largest grain agricultural product of the world. It not only provides animal feeding, but also the main raw material for industrial production of starch and fermentation. U.S. is the largest producer of corn. It produces about 332 million tons per year. About 40% of the corn is refined as ethanol and used for industrial purposes.

Soybean futures
Soybean is the most important agricultural product. It can be used for edible and pressing oil. Soybean is a kind of high quality and high content of plant protein resources, whose component and composition are double of meat food. The end products include soy sauce, dried beans, tofu and vegetarian products. Moreover, it can be used as the raw materials for the production of proteins and drugs.

Soybean oil and soybean meal futures
Soybean oil is pressed from the soybean. It is also the most productive and consuming plant oil in the world. It occupies 30% of the total vegetable oil production, and also be the world's largest edible oil. The net material after the extraction of soybean oil becomes soybean powder used in feeding and food industry. It is an excellent source of protein and soybean fiber used as main raw material for modern vegetarian products.

Oats futures
Oats are grown in low temperature regions. They have a lower summer heat requirement and greater tolerance of rain than other cereals. They are suitable for growing in Europe, Russia, Canada and the Northern United states. Because of high nutritional value, more than 85% of the oats are used as agricultural feeding, followed by health care products producing.

Wheat futures
Wheat is the second most output of agricultural crop in the world. It is grown in China, India and the United states. Wheat has numerous uses, such as daily diet, brewed beer, alcoholic drinks and fuel. Wheat leaf can be used as feeding or roofing materials. Wheat straw can be the raw materials of paper making.

Cotton futures
Cotton is mostly produced in China followed by India and the United States. After processed, cotton can be used as textile products, such as clothes, bath towels, robes, blue jeans and etc. As the world economy continues to grow and the rapid development of textile industry, it further increases the demand for cotton globally.

Coffee futures
Coffee futures are mainly traded in the NYBOT exchange. The Arabica coffee is the benchmark for coffee contract, because its taste is the most favorable in the market. The Arabica variety is growing in the mild climate, high altitude regions. The major producing countries are such as Brazil, Columbia and other Latin American.

Sugar 11 futures
The Sugar No. 11 is the world benchmark for raw sugar futures contract trading. It is generated mainly from saccharin and juicing sweet vegetable. After refining, raw sugar can become the international traded sugar product. Nowadays, major sugar producing countries are Brazil, India, EU, China and Thailand.

Orange juice futures
Brazil and U.S. are the major orange juice producing countries. They occupy totally 90% of productivity. Therefore, the price of orange juice futures is mainly influenced by Brazil and the United States’ demand and supply. Besides, climate is also having great influence on the price of orange juice, especially winter frost and summer typhoon in U.S. Florida.

Influence factors

• Weather and natural disaster

• International demand and supply

• National import and export policy

• New farming technology

• Substitute products

• Transportation cost

Currency futures

Currency futures contract is a standardized contract, which exchanges one currency for another in the future at a specified date, price (exchange rate), and quantity. The major function includes hedging and speculating. Currency futures were first created in 1972 at the International Commercial Exchange in Chicago. Their trading volume have been increased by the rapid development of international trades and the integration of the global economy. They not only provide effective foreign currency hedging instruments, but also being a platform for speculators and traders generating profit.

Types of Currency futures
The major trading currency futures included: EUR/USD, GBP/USD, AUD/USD, USD/JPY, USD/CHF and US dollar index.

Special attention is played on:                    US dollar index
The US Dollar Index is a basket of currencies against US dollar. The weighting of the currencies is: Euro 57.6%, Japanese Yen 13.6%, Pound Sterling 11.9%, Canadian Dollar 9.1%, Swedish Krona 4.2%, Swiss Franc 3.6%.

Influence factors

• The domestic and U.S. economic data

• The import and export data

• The value of inflation

• International trade balance

• International fund flow

• U.S. monetary policy

• Sovereign ratings

• Political factors and natural disasters