A futures contract provides that an agreed quantity and quality of the commodity will be delivered at some agreed future date. A farmer raising corn can sell a futures contract on his corn, which will not be harvested for several months, and gets a guarantee of the price he will be paid when he delivers; a breakfast cereal producer buys the contract and gets a guarantee that the price will not go up when it is delivered. This protects the farmer from price drops and the buyer from price rises. Speculators and investors also buy and sell these contracts to try to make a profit; they provide liquidity to the system.
Some of these exchanges also trade financial derivatives, such as interest rate and foreign exchange futures, as well as other instruments such as ocean freight contracts and environmental instruments. In some cases these are mentioned in the lists below.
^"COINVEX | the Commodities Investment Exchange - Energy investment, Oil investment, Mining investment". Archived from the original on 2014-11-19. Retrieved 2018-09-11.
^"Nasdaq Commodities". NASDAQOMX.com.
^"Nord Pool Spot". nordpoolspot.com.
^"POWER EXCHANGE CENTRAL EUROPE (PXE): About PXE".
^"Saint-Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange: About".