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Contractual developments of Derivatives

1) In the spot contract, buyers and sellers agree on agreement and delivery at the time. But in the forward or future contract, both determined in another time. There are time-lapse between the dates of agreement and delivery in the latter. This structure naturally expose both buyers and sellers to default risks. As a rule, futures differs from forward in that physical delivery hardly takes place, whereas actual delivery does take place in forward transactions. 2) A future contract is an agreement to buy or sell a specific amount of a commodities at a particular price on a stipulated future trade. But the parties does not negotiate the terms of agreement as these are all standardised. Futures and insurance are all an important tools for risk management. Futures contract is eventually zero-sum game. The loss in one is likely to offset by a gain in the other. But insurance contracts are based on statistics. The other insured in here are helpful to one. 3) Options are also like futures a way of managing and reducing risk. That are more versatile and strategic to the investor. Option purchaser is granted the privilege of buying(call option) or selling(put option) a underlying commodity. If the price fluctuates, he is, as a result, more attractive than the option writer. The buyers pay the seller a fee for granting the privilege. This fee is called the premium. An option may be defined as the right, but not an obligation to buy or sell a particular item. But we must not conclude that option trade is an unequal contract. 4) Even though futures are an zero-sum game, derivatives are harmful to the parties with its complexity, market manipulation and fraud. Moreover many cryptic derivatives in recent are very hard to understand completely. Therefore we need an authority to supervise derivatives market. In Korea, FSS(Financial Supervisory Service) practices this function as CFTC does in the United States. We need other foreign legislatives to cope with these problems. Because experiences in USA, Japan and other countries will be an important test for us.