Future contract are traded on Chicago Mercantile Exchange, it helps to minimize your loss and risk. Trade takes place in currency futures, which orders specific quantities of given currencies, the exchange rate is fixed at the time the contract is entered into, and the delivery date is set by the board of directors of the International Monetary Market (IMM). Currency futures contracted are available for the Australian dollar, Brazilian real, British pound, Canadian dollar, Czech koruna, euro, Hungarian forint, Japanese yen, Mexican peso, New Zealand dollar, Norwegian krone, Polish zloty, and Russian ruble just to name few. Currency that meet the minimum volume requirements are added, and those that do not are dropped. Most exchanges have daily price limits on their contracts that restrict the maximum daily price move. When these limits are reached additional margin requirements are imposed and trading may be halted for a short term. Currencies aren’t traded in usual format of bid-ask spreads, traders charge commissions. Commissions is different in each trade, however one buy and one sell costs as little as $15 or 0.02%. Since it has low cost and high degree of leverage it has brought attention from a lot of speculators to participate in the market. Other than general public participants also includes importers and exporters, companies with foreign currency assets and liabilities, and bankers.  Its easier to understand future contract when it is compared with forward contracts. Futures contracts are standardized contracts that trade on organized future markets for specific delivery dates only. Forward contracts are private deals between two individuals who can sign any type of contracts they agree on. Example would be two individuals may sign a forward contract for $70,000 in 20 months to be paid in Euros. Which leads to only few standardized contracts traded, the trading volume in available contracts is higher, leading to superior liquidity, smaller price fluctuations, and lower transaction costs.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futures_contract http://www.investorwords.com/2136/futures_contract.html