In general, such contracts work a little differently than, say, stocks. Buying shares by an individual trader is more of an investment, while trading futures is still more of a speculation.
At the same time, due to this feature, contracts with delivery in the future have several advantages that will not be available if you decide to invest in the stock market. For example, futures trade nearly 24 hours a day, six days a week, while stocks have fixed trading hours.
Another advantage of futures is the lower margin requirement when selling. A short position in shares is the process of selling an asset that is borrowed, with a further repurchase of this asset for less money. For stock trading under this scheme, high margin requirements are set, but when working with futures contracts, the margin requirements are the same when buying and selling.
Futures contracts also allow a trader to diversify certain asset classes and invest in them more actively.
For example, the share price of an oil producing company will depend not only on oil prices, but also on the work of the company's management, as well as its competitors. But the futures contract itself can be completely based on the price of oil without any additional factors that the work of the company and its environment can carry.
But this does not mean at all that futures will be less risky for an investor: do not forget that this is still a complex financial instrument.
Collateral requirements for futures trading are much lower than for stocks, typically ranging from 5 to 10% of the asset value. At the same time, as with stock trading, the broker provides leverage, for which you have to pay.
On the one hand, this is a plus, but the risks are growing, because a trader can open many contracts with minimal margins. In this case, if the price goes in the right direction, then the trader will earn, and if the price goes against the trader, the latter will start to lose a lot. Therefore, the benefits of low margin when trading futures should be used with great care.