31.   In many countries there is no legal recourse to defaults on gambling debts, and a futures contract may be considered to be a kind of gamble.

32.   Clearly, the development of futures markets in such countries has to wait until futures contracts are legally enforceable.

33.   To be successful, a futures contract must have a liquid market with low transactions costs associated with trading in the contract.

34.   Like futures contracts, options require cash guarantees in the form of margin, but unlike futures such margin arrangements differ from one exchange to another.

35.   Of course, in order to be able to establish an option contract on an underlying futures contract, the futures contract must have a prior existence.

36.   Option contracts, however, tend to have thinner markets than futures contracts.

37.   Since then the CBoT has launched various bond and stock index futures contracts though many have been delisted due to insufficient trading volumes.

38.   The CBoT has internationalised its futures contracts and lengthened its trading day.

39.   Issues by the Italian, French and UK governments have become among the most widely traded issues, and created a basis for ECU based futures contracts.

40.   For present purposes it suffices to say that futures contracts undertaken for investment purposes are investments subject to the FSA.