The "daily Call" From Option Alpha: Options Trading | Stock Options | Stock Trading | Trading Online

Hey everyone. This is Kirk here again from Option Alpha and welcome back to the daily call. Today, we’re going to answer the question – “Do futures contracts pay dividends?” And the simple answer to the question is no. Futures contracts do not pay dividends. They don’t necessarily benefit directly from the payment of dividends. You would really have to own the underlying stock in order to collect those dividends or own an option contract that would benefit from the dividend being paid. Futures contracts are at a little bit of a disadvantage in that sense compared to owning the underlying stock because they don’t benefit directly from the dividends. That being said, many of the futures indexes or commodities or underlyings by which these contracts are based are already pricing in a future price which may or should potentially include the expectation of dividends if dividends are being paid over the course of a year or a quarter or a month or whatever, etcetera. If you’re looking at a stock or a commodity or a