I guess it doesn't really help to generalise about which instrument does what, when in practice even long positions on the stock market can be extremely risky. When talking about the risks of one instrument or another, you really need to look at the way people use them, and why. Therein lies my problem with many derivatives; their trade for profit is really just a game between you and some other guy, so it makes it quite literally impossible for the players to experience a net benefit from the activity. With the charges you mentioned, the participants actually leave the trade worse off than when they started.