Stock Indexes Futures

Stock Index Futures Contracts is a financial instrument that has been widely known at this point. According to the data bank for International Settlements (BIS) transactions that occur in the global market for these products has reached U.S. $ 221,200 million in 2005. Stock index futures contracts used as hedging tools (hedge), investment and speculative trading.

Hedging activities (hedging) in stock index futures contracts for hedging include the ownership of the shares or options over the index. Speculative trading in stock index futures contracts is done by utilizing price volatility, the greater the volatility, the greater the potential for profit, although usually the traders tend to take a little advantage but done continuously. While investing in the stock indices means investing in a particular market or sector without having to buy shares directly.

Stock index essentially is a statistical value that reflects the combined value of the shares that are the components that make up the index value. So the stock indexes can be used as a tool to describe the changes in the characteristics of the stock component therein. Many stock indexes that exist on the current drawn by a news agency or a financial services company which they use as a benchmark for the performance of many investment portfolios such as mutual funds.

Common stock index are classified in various ways. The index number itself actually represents the overall performance of the stock market. The indices are regularly published index covering usually are shares of large companies. Industrial index combined Dow Jones (DJIA / AS), S & P 500 (U.S.), FTSE 100 (UK), CAC 40 (France), DAX (Germany), Nikkei 225 (Japan), Hang Seng (Hong Kong), Kospi-200 ( Korea), Sensex (India) including JCI (Indonesia) and many others.