(finance) A standardized contract, traded on a futures exchange, to buy or sell a standardized quantity of a specified commodity (or financial instrument) of standardized quality at a certain date in the future, at a stated price (the futures price).
He led the way with futures contracts (by which buyer and seller fix a price, immune from market fluctuations, for commodities that do not even exist at the time, such as crops yet to be sown) when these were exotic financial instruments few had hitherto tried.
John Smullen, Nicholas Hand, editors (2005), “futures contract”, in A Dictionary of Finance and Banking, 3rd edition, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 174
