IDIOT'S GUIDE TO FED2
FUTURES CONTRACTS
TRADING IN FUTURES
When you promote to Trader, you have to learn another way to make money. While you can still buy and sell goods which you personally haul between planets, there is a daily limit on how much trading you can do: once your gross sales reach 1 meg you will be prevented from buying and selling any more that day. (This restriction is lifted when you promote to the next rank.) You should also start divesting yourself of your warehouses, because you don't need them at this rank and will have to get rid of them before you can become an Industrialist - you can sell warehouses but not buy new ones.
A futures contract is like making a wager. You purchase a futures contract to either buy or sell a specific commodity on a specific planet, at a later time. You are gambling that at some point between the time you take out the contract, and the time you liquidate it, the price of that commodity will change in such a way that you can make a profit on the deal.
For example, you might contract to buy 225 tons of alloys from Mars at a price of 29,925 groats - this is called a long contract. That works out at 133 groats per ton, which is lower than the base price for alloys. You therefore think it is likely that over time, the price will rise, so that the futures contract becomes profitable.
Alternatively, you might contract to sell 225 tons of alloys on Mars - a short contract. In that case, you would want the futures contract to be priced high, and you would be gambling that over time the exchange price would drop, so that when the futures contract is settled you make a profit.
Note that you never actually have to go out and buy or sell loads of alloys yourself - these are all paper transactions. The details are handled by your broker, who works for Messrs Trumble, Cruikshank & Bone on Earth. This means the rank can be a change of pace from previous ranks. Although you will need to visit an exchange to purchase a futures contract, once you have done so your time will be spent monitoring the movement of prices in order to decide when to liquidate the contract, rather than rushing around the Solar System - thus leaving a lot more time for socialising in Chez Diesel, the Social Center of the Solar System.
