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At some point, most serious stock traders and investors become aware of the futures market. There is a whole industry built around attracting new participants into commodities, as well as an entire industry catering to teaching how to trade futures.

(Note that I am using the terms “commodities” and “futures” interchangeably. Some in the futures industry use “commodities” to denote futures on agricultural, livestock, and other food products. They use futures to denote financial futures like stock indexes, bonds, and foreign currencies).

Most investors should “quit while they are ahead”, and avoid getting involved with futures. The surest way to build wealth is the stock market. Futures, on the other hand, are a good way to lose your money.

But, to provide a basic understanding, here are the differences between investing in stocks vs. futures:

1. The “future” in futures – When we buy or sell shares of a stock, we are actually buying or selling the stock today. With futures, you are actually entering into a contract to buy or sell a certain amount of a product at a certain date in the future. From a fundamental point of view, this means that a stock investor is trying to analyzing supply / demand for today. The futures trader is trying to analyze how supply / demand will be in the future.

2. Specific contract sizes – A stock market investor can buy or sell as many shares as they want. A futures trader is limited to trading in specific contract sizes. For example, I can sell 1 share of IBM stock, but I can only trade corn futures in multiples of 5,000 bushels. This makes it hard to use re-balancing formulas (a very powerful method in stock trading) with futures.

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3. Leverage – A stock trader can, at most, use 50% leverage. This means that, if they have $100, they can buy $150 worth of stock. Futures traders, on the other hand, can use almost 90% leverage. For example, at a price of $2.54 per bushel, a futures contract of corn is worth $12,700. The margin to buy or sell a corn contract, however, is only $2,000. This means that, for $2,000, you can control $12,700 of corn.

At this level of leverage, a 15% increase in corn prices will double your money. But, a 15% decrease will wipe you out. If corn prices fell 30%, you would lose double the value of your account, and would have to pay the difference.

This leverage is the critical factor with futures trading. This ability to make a lot of money fast is what attracts people to futures, but it has also been the cause of many bankruptcies, divorces, and suicides.

Ironically, the commodities themselves are less volatile than stocks. This makes sense, because there are more factors that can affect IBM than can affect corn. Growing grain is easier than running a multinational company. It’s the leverage that makes it volatile. Essentially, you are magnifying the price movements. The drawback is that a futures trader is more vulnerable to random fluctuations. This is why futures trading is more like gambling. Even if you analyze correctly, and price eventually reaches your prediction, a sudden, short lived price spike can wipe out your account.

4. Ease of short selling Since stock traders are actually buying and selling shares of stock, it is harder to sell short to take advantage of falling prices. Since you can’t create a share of IBM, you actually have to borrow shares through your broker. Then, you pay interest and dividends to the owner until you buy back the shares. With futures trading, going short is as easy as going long. Since you are entering a contract to buy or sell something in the future (rather than actually selling something), you just create a contract promising to sell.

5. Expiration dates With stock trading, once you own shares in a company, they are yours to keep until you sell them. You can own shares forever. With futures, they have a certain date at which they come due. If you don’t offset your contract before that date, you may have to deliver or take delivery of the product. For example, if you have a contract to buy 5,000 bushels of corn, and you don’t sell it before the date, you might start getting warehouse bills for your corn.

I hope this article has provided you with a basic understanding of futures vs. stocks. As I stated before, I think most traders are better off sticking with stocks. Futures are less forgiving and more random, so it is much harder to develop a system that has a sustainable edge over time.

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