Comment by seanhunter

You have to have a margin agreement in place to do any futures trading regardless of investment/hedging/speculation purpose. It's a requirement of the futures exchanges. For example, here's the "about margin" page of the CME group

https://www.cmegroup.com/education/courses/introduction-to-f... what-is-needed.html

"Futures margin is the amount of money that you must deposit and keep on hand with your broker when you open a futures position. It is not a down payment and you do not own the underlying commodity."

Notice you have to have margin on deposit to open any futures position.