Spot vs Futures

Spot and futures are two ways of pricing the same market at different points in time. A spot price is for effectively immediate settlement, while a futures price is agreed today for delivery or cash settlement on a fixed date in the future, and therefore embeds financing costs, storage and expected income until that date. Retail platforms often list both: a "cash" or "spot" instrument that never expires and carries a daily financing charge, and a dated futures instrument that expires and has no daily swap but a wider spread. The economics are similar overall — spot traders pay the carry a day at a time, futures traders pay it up front in the price.