Futures trading is the process of dealing in contracts whereby the buyer acquires a right that entitles him / her to purchase a specific asset at a specific price after a specific period of time in the future. Such contracts relate to standard goods such as oil, gold or stock market indexes. Futures may be, and are often used for hedging, meaning that traders want to guard against risk and can use futures as insurance against market changes; futures may also be used for speculation, where traders are trying to take calculated risks on market changes. Options are financial instruments in which the trader acquires a right to buy or sell the asset at a predetermined price in a given time only. There are two basic forms of options as follows: call options – the right to purchase, put options – the right to sell.