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Finance Lessons

Futures & Forwards

Final Exam: Futures and Forwards

The graded final exam for Futures and Forwards: forward contracts and their straight-line payoff, futures vs forwards and the clearing house, margin and daily mark-to-market, cost-of-carry pricing and arbitrage, basis, contango and backwardation, roll yield, and hedgers versus speculators.

16 min Updated Jun 10, 2026

This is the capstone. Six lessons took you from “what does it mean to agree a price today for a trade later?” to reading a futures curve like a practitioner — the straight, symmetric payoff of a forward, the exchange machinery that makes a future safe, the daily margin dance, the no-arbitrage logic that pins the forward price, the contango-and-backwardation shape of the curve, and the hedgers and speculators who fill both sides. No formula sheet, no hints, no take-backs: every answer locks the instant you submit, the wrong options are the exact traps that catch real traders, and your score stays hidden until the end.

Warning:

How this exam works

This is a graded exam. Questions arrive one at a time. Once you submit an answer it is final — there is no going back, no second try, and a wrong answer simply fails that question. Your score stays hidden until the very end, where you need 70% to pass. Read every option before you commit.

Question 1 of 26

You agree today to buy 1,000 bushels of wheat in three months at $7.00/bushel. At delivery, wheat is $5.00. As the long, what must you do?

Select an answer to continue.

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