Gold Futures

Gold Futures

An agreement to buy and sell a certain amount of gold at a certain date at a certain price. For example, Investor A may make a contract with Farmer B in which A agrees to buy a certain number of bars of B's gold at $800 per ounce. This contract must be honored whether the price of corn goes to $100 or $2,000 per ounce. Gold futures contracts can help reduce volatility in the normally volatile commodity markets, but contain the risks inherent to all speculative investing. These contracts may be sold on the secondary market, but the person holding the contract at its end must take delivery of the underlying.