编者按：为宣传期货市场功能，丰富投教产品，上海期货交易所会员和投资者教育部录制了“期货面对面”系列人物访谈栏目，通过采访期货市场各领域的专业人士，从价格发现、风险管理、发展和机遇等角度讲述其亲身经历的期货情缘，以及期货市场服务实体企业、国家战略、国计民生的故事。欢迎投资者关注。

视频文字摘要：

Host: Today we are meeting with Mark to share his views on the functions of futures market. We notice that you have many years of experience in futures business. So what are the major roles of futures contracts in the economy?

Mark: Well, actually that's a really good question. Because there's a lot of functions and roles that futures contracts playing in the market. But you can generalize them down to just a few elements. One of those major elements is price discovery. And what price discovery means is that how prices get found out, what's the value of something. In futures contracts perform that role very well, because futures contracts are highly liquid. 

Host：How do you think enterprises could benefit from the futures market ？

Mark：Well, actually, there's a number of ways that firms or enterprises can benefit. I mean, clearly they can use the futures markets as a risk mechanism to reduce their risk exposure.  Because if you take corporations, for example, they're very good at their business, their operational risks, whatever they're doing, whether it's, you know, making cars or making tires. They're very good at that business, because that's their core business. That's why they're there.  For instance, airlines, they manage their planes on their routes, but then you have other risks that are outside of their control, for instance, interest rates, or fuel prices, or energy prices. They can't control those.

So they could simply say, well, we'll wait and see what happens or we can use futures contracts to lock in prices and reduce our risk.  One of the most famous examples is Southwest Airlines in the United States. Southwest is a considered budget carrier, other kind of where the smaller carriers that I think they'd be a comparable to like an Air Asia or Hong Kong Airlines. They're very good carrier. But what happened was Southwest Airlines engaged in a fuel hedging program because they wanted to reduce the risk of fuel prices going up. Because they sell tickets at a set price. 

But then the fuel they buy changes in price. So what happened is crude oil went from ＄40/barrel almost up to ＄119/barrel .And that caused many airlines to lose huge fast sums of money. Quite a few of them went out of business, but Southwest Airlines had been hedging for years going into this with a very good hedging program where they were using both futures contracts and forwards which are over the counter futures in personalized or individualized futures contracts. 

And so they were using these contracts to hedge. And so when the other airlines started paying more and more per gallon of fuel, Southwest is paying the same, right? Because they locked in. So it turned out by the end of 2007, the value of Southwest Airlines actually exceeded the value of the next six biggest big carriers, which was United, American, Continental, Northwest, Delta, and US Airways. It's exceeded the value of those airlines combined. I mean, it was just a massive success. They're hedging and it's actually a fairly simple formula. They had a simple rolling hedge program. 

Host：Many individuals don't participate in futures trading, so how do you think futures market can benefit them?

Mark：Oh, that's actually a very good question, because when you take a look at the participants in futures contracts in futures trading, I wouldn't recommend it for everybody.  I mean, not everybody should be trading futures. Some people should be because they can find it very beneficial. But then the question becomes, what about those that never trade or are not interested? Should they care about the futures markets? Actually, they should, because the futures markets, even though they're not direct participants, still very much benefit them.

And there this can happen in a number of different ways. For instance, aluminum, lots and lots of things are made of aluminum today. The aluminum contracts traded on the exchanges here. Those contracts help reduce the price volatility of aluminum doesn't mean price volatility won't happen. Prices will still change. But what happens is they will change less if the futures contracts are there to buffer those price changes. And those things then can impact the regular consumers. For instance, if you're buying a can of a soft drink, may be a coca cola, whatever, it's aluminum cans. Well, the people who bottle that or put it in the cans .that cancer cost to them. And if they see price stability, then they can pass along stable prices to end consumers. 

主持人：今天我们和马克聊一聊他对期货市场功能的一些看法。我们知道您拥有多年从事期货行业的经验，您认为期货在经济中的主要作用是什么呢？

嘉宾：这个问题问得很好，期货在市场中具有多种功能和作用，你可以把它们归纳成几点，其中主要的一点就是价格发现，价格发现意味着价格如何产生，它的价值是多少，流动性较强能让期货很好地发挥价格发现这个作用。

主持人：（投资者）能从期货市场中获取什么呢？

嘉宾：实体企业可以从多方面获益，他们可以利用期货市场来降低风险。以大型企业为例，他们善于经营业务和运营风险，无论做什么，不管是生产汽车还是轮胎他们都非常擅长，因为这是他们的核心业务。比如航空公司，他们可以在航线范围内管理好自己的飞机，但还有一些他们无法控制的风险，比如利率、燃油以及能源价格，这些都是他们无法控制的，选择等待看会发生什么或者是利用期货合约来锁定价格来降低风险。比较著名的案例就是美国西南航空公司，西南航空被认为是一家经济型航空公司，或者小型航空公司，和亚洲航空和香港航空类似。当时西南航空公司参与了燃油套保项目，由于他们是以固定价格出售机票的，但他们购买燃油的价格却一直在变化，为了降低燃油价格上涨所带来的风险，当时的原油价格从40美元/桶一路飙升到了119美元/桶，这导致多家航空公司短时期内损失了巨额资金，他们中有不少都宣告破产。而西南航空多年来一直在做风险对冲，利用场外的远期合约、个性化远期合约，进行套期保值。因此当其他航空公司开始为燃油支付越来越多的费用时，西南航空只需支付固定的价格，因为他们锁定了燃油价格。到了2007年底，西南航空公司已经超过了其他六大航空公司的总市价，美国联合航空、美国航空、美国大陆航空、西北航空、达美航空和全美航空，它超过了这些航空公司的总市价。这是一次巨大的成功，他们对冲所用的方案其实就是一个简单的滚动式套期保值模式。

主持人：许多人并没有参与期货交易，那您认为这类人能从期货市场中收获什么呢？

嘉宾：这个问题很好，纵观期货市场中的参与者，我并不推荐所有人都参与，不是每个人都应该进行期货交易，有些人应该做期货是因为他们能发现期货非常有益，但对于那些从不交易期货或者对期货毫无兴趣的人呢？他们也应该关心期货市场吗？事实上他们也需要关心，因为即使他们并不是期货市场的直接参与者，但同样还是从中受益了。这些情况可能以许多不同的方式发生，举例来说：现在很多东西都是由铝制成的，铝合约在交易所挂牌交易，有助于降低铝价的波动性，但这并不意味价格就不会发生波动了，价格仍会变化，但如果有期货合约来缓冲这些价格变动，那么波动将会降低。这些情况也会影响到普通消费者，比如这瓶软饮料，可口可乐或者其他由铝罐装的饮料，那些将饮料装入瓶子的人，就需要花钱购买铝罐，如果这些人发现价格持续稳定，那他们也可将稳定的饮料价格传递给最终消费者。