INTRO TO FUTURES  Futures are contracts between twoparties to exchange a given amount of product for a particular price at some point in the future. These contracts have an agrarian history — they were initially used by farmers to set prices with buyers prior to harvesting crops. With a futures contract, both the producer and buyer minimize future uncertainty by arranging a price that is beneficial to both. While many futures contracts still involve the actual purchase of things like pork bellies, corn and oil, there is a large amount of futures trading done by investors as a way to hedge against market uncertainty. Traders buy and sell futures on commodities, precious metals, currencies and stock indexes on organized electronic trading systems.