Much oil already changes hands this way, he pointed out, in contracts for future delivery.

The price of crude oil continued to drop on spot markets and in contracts for future delivery.

On the commodities exchanges, where contracts for future delivery of these products are traded, business is brisk.

Exchange stocks of any commodity are considered important because contracts for future delivery are written against such physical supplies.

Some buy contracts for future delivery of the grains, and some, of course, sell.

The forward market is the informal over-the-counter financial market by which contracts for future delivery are entered into.

Most contracts for future deliveries of frozen concentrated orange juice fell the permitted 5-cents-a-pound daily limit.

The contracts for future delivery of the metals in later months, however, traded with daily limits on how high, or how low, the price could move.

When a market is rising, holders of contracts for future delivery of a commodity see the value of their contract increase.

Working with investment bankers, it sells contracts for future delivery and invests the proceeds from those transactions in high-quality securities.

A futures contract is a contract for future delivery of an item at a price agreed upon when the contract is made.

And the forecasts for similar weather this week implies that yields may fall further, making contracts for future deliveries of soybeans more costly.

Changing Attitudes Many investors who had bought short positions have now switched and gone "long," buying contracts for future delivery at a fixed price, he said.

Mr. Dell's argument was that inexperienced institutional investors had been investing in contracts for future delivery of oil, driving up futures prices.

The contango contract for future delivery, selling today, is at a price premium relative to buying the commodity today and taking delivery.

These are more than one-to-one representations of units of a given type of commodity, and represent more than simple futures contracts for future deliveries.

These transactions were similar to "forward delivery" contracts under which "commercial users" of a commodity contracted for future deliveries of that commodity at an agreed upon price.

All contracts for future deliveries of frozen concentrated orange juice rose the 5-cent limit except the limitless January contract, which settled 8.65 cents higher at $1.7965 a pound.

At the moment, there's a waiting list for these cars, and some contracts for future delivery have been trading hands for $20,000 - that's in addition to the sticker price.

And it has added a small number of stocks in private companies, commercial banks and financial institutions to the bulk of its business - contracts for future delivery of commodities.

Prices of most contracts for future deliveries of frozen concentrated orange juice soared the permitted daily limit of 5 cents a pound on the New York Cotton Exchange.

In the open outcry system, traders crowd into designated trading pits where they buy and sell contracts for future deliveries of commodities through a combination of hand signals and shouted buy and sell orders.

With industrial demand for copper up as much as 8 percent from a year ago and warehouse inventories at their lowest levels in 13 years, traders were desperate to secure contracts for future delivery of the metal, analysts said.

"Very orderly, beyond our expectation," said Z. Lou Guttman, the New York Merc's chairman, describing the day's activity, in which contracts for future delivery of crude oil, gasoline and heating oil all fell sharply.

The selling caused limit-down moves of 1.50 cents a pound in some live cattle, feeder cattle and hog contracts and 2 cents a pound in some contracts for future delivery of frozen pork bellies.