Benefits of dervatives
Cost-effectiveness: Trading derivatives can sometimes be more cost-effective than buying and selling the underlying asset itself, especially for frequently executed trades.
Derivatives Glossary
Contract Size
The contract size refers to the quantity of the asset on which a derivatives contract is based. For example, an ADX Stock futures contract represents 100 shares of the underlying stock.
Contract Value
The contract value of a futures contract is the current price of the futures contract, multiplied by the contract size.
Tick Size
The tick size is the smallest measurable value by which the price of a financial instrument, such as a derivatives contract, can move.
Initial Margin
The initial margin is the cash amount that must be paid upfront before taking a buy or sell position in a futures contract. It is essentially the ‘deposit’ required to trade in futures.
Maintenance margin is the minimum amount an investor must maintain in the margin account with the broker when trading derivatives contracts.
Variation Margin
Variation margin, also called ‘mark to market’ margin is the additional cash required to be deposited by an investor to continue holding his open positions, after his positions have suffered losses to the extent that his margin account has gone below the maintenance margin requirement.
Margin Call
The cash demand by a broker to a client for additional funds to bring the margin account up to the ‘maintenance margin’,
Contract Expiry
Contract expiry refers to the last day of trading for a contract.
Settlement Type
Settlement type is the mode of settlement (cash or physical delivery) of the underlying asset in a derivatives contract.
Square Off
Square off refers to an opposing trade that an investor, with an open contract takes, in order to close his position in the contract.