Commodity: A commodity, as defined in the Commodity Exchange Act, includes the agricultural commodities enumerated in Section 1a(4) of the Commodity Exchange Act, 7 USC 1a(4), and all other goods and articles, except onions as provided in Public Law 85-839 (7 USC 13-1), a 1958 law that banned futures trading in onions, and all services, rights, and interests in which contracts for future delivery are presently or in the future dealt in.
Contract: Contract is a term of reference describing a unit of trading for a commodity future or option. At the same time contract is an agreement to buy or sell a specified commodity, detailing the amount and grade of the product and the date on which the contract will mature and become deliverable.
Delivery: Delivery is the transfer of the cash commodity from the seller of a futures contract to the buyer of a futures contract. It is the tender and receipt of the actual commodity, the cash value of the commodity, or of a delivery instrument covering the commodity (e.g., warehouse receipts or shipping certificates), used to settle a futures contract. Each futures exchange has specific procedures for delivery of a cash commodity. Some futures contracts, such as stock index contracts, are cash settled.
Exercise: Exercise is the action taken by the holder of a call option if he wishes to purchase the underlying futures contract or by the holder of a put option if he wishes to sell the underlying futures contract.
Fill: Fill is the execution of an order.
Futures: Futures (also called Futures Contract) is a legally binding agreement to buy or sell a commodity or financial instrument at a later date. Futures contracts are normally standardized according to the quality, quantity, delivery time and location for each commodity, with price as the only variable.
Offset: Offset (also referred to as Liquidation, closing out and cover) is the liquidation of a purchase of futures contracts through the sale of an equal number of contracts of the same delivery month, or liquidating a short sale of futures through the purchase of an equal number of contracts of the same delivery month.
Open: Open is the period at the beginning of the trading session officially designated by the exchange during which all transactions are considered made "at the open."
Open Interest: Open Interest is the total number of futures or options contracts of a given commodity that have not yet been offset by an opposite futures or option transaction nor fulfilled by delivery of the commodity or option exercise. Open Interest is also called open contracts or open commitments. Each open transaction has a buyer and a seller, but for calculation of open interest, only one side of the contract is counted.
Open interest is the number of open contracts of a given option. An open contract is either put or call that is not exercised, closed or expired. Open interest increases when a buyer opens a put or call position and, vise versa, open interest decreases when a buyer sells/closes a put or call position.
Volume and open interest are important indicators in futures markets.
Option: Option is a contract that gives the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell a specified quantity of a commodity or other instrument at a specific price within a specified period of time, regardless of the market price of that instrument. There are two types of options: Put Options and Call Options.
Transaction: Transaction is an entry or liquidation of a trade.
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Naked options trading is very risky - many people lose money trading them. It is recommended contacting your broker or investment professional to find out about trading risk and margin requirements before getting involved into trading uncovered options.