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Here’s Why Futures Matter to You

Futures trading helps businesses around the world navigate risk and uncertainty. By locking in future prices using futures products, they are better equipped to take on new opportunities, act more quickly and decisively, grow their businesses and ultimately help reduce costs for you, the consumer.

Futures play a huge role in our economy. But they also impact the smallest areas of your life — like the cereal you have for breakfast. See how below.

More goes into your bowl of breakfast cereal than milk

On the surface, the recipe for a bowl of cereal seems simple: just add milk and find a spoon. But futures play a role in every part of your breakfast — from the grains it’s made with to the milk you pour on it.

Learn why
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Grain Futures

Grain futures help farmers, processors and distributors lock in their future prices for corn, wheat and oats — so they can manage their businesses efficiently and deliver competitively-priced cereal to you.

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Energy Futures

Oil futures enable companies to manage the risk of changing energy prices, such as the fluctuating cost of fuel for the trucks and trains that transport cereal and milk to you.

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Interest Rate Futures

Locking in interest rates using futures enables banks to make competitive loans to farmers, processors and distributors, so they can buy farming equipment and build factories that turn grains into your corn flakes and oatmeal.

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Dairy Futures

Dairy markets react to changes in supply and demand, which greatly affect the price of milk – cereal’s best friend. Managing costs with dairy futures helps protect against price fluctuations.

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Steel Futures

Even steel — whether it’s used to make your spoon or a grain silo – can play a role in your breakfast. With steel futures, manufacturers can bring greater certainty to future prices, so they can manage risk and make the best choices for their businesses.

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Additional Resources

The following resources are from Econ Essentials, created in partnership with Discovery Education.

Mini Lesson

Futures Markets and Managing Risk

Explore the ways that businesses and individuals can safeguard against fluctuations in price by using futures contracts in the global marketplace.

Classroom Lesson

Rapid Changes in Supply and Demand

Help students connect economics concepts to current events with a timely activity examining real-world applications of extreme changes in supply or demand.

Classroom Lesson

The Importance of Supply Chains and the Impact of Disruptions

Students can investigate the dynamic factors that contribute to supply chain disruptions, and the very real consequences these interruptions can have on everyday life.

Video Viewpoints Series

The Impact of Supply Chain Disruptions

Students investigate factors that disrupt supply chains, and how to navigate the price fluctuations around them.

Self-Paced Module

Facts About Food

Take an interactive journey from the farm to the table with this educational resource.

Self-Paced Module

Fueling the Future

Try your hand at predicting future gas prices using this interactive, educational resource.

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Futures Products

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