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January 8, 2008
Online Commodity Trading
Introduction to Online Commodity Trading

Commodities markets include items such as corn, wheat, pork-bellies, soybeans, gold, silver, heating oil, lumber and many other trade items. In fact, any kind of product that is produced in large quantities with regular productions cycles, seasonable variations in availability and price, lead times of more than one month, and near constant demand for the raw material can be used to conduct online commodity trading. Huge companies operate in these markets and practice commodity investing. They use commodity futures contracts to lock in their selling prices for a product in advance of delivery. When a company does this, it is called hedging. On the other side of the transaction is a trader that speculates on the price of the commodities. When conducting online commodity trading, the trader is trying to determine if the price of the commodities will go up or down. A futures contract is a commitment to buy a commodity with an inherent value at the date specified. Another way to think of it is that futures are agreements to buy or sell commodities at a specified price in the future, regardless of market conditions. Buying and selling futures contracts when online commodity trading, allows investors to buy and sell the commitments to buy products in response to market pressures.

There are about a dozen major exchanges available when trading commodities. If you are interested in online commodity trading, you should at least be familiar with the commodity exchanges listed below.

1)         New York Mercantile Exchange (NY MEX) – This is one of the oldest exchanges in the U.S. and it specializes in petroleum and metal products. It moved from Chicago to a financial center in New York.

2)         Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) – This exchange only originally traded agricultural commodities however, it now offers options contracts and futures contracts on products such as gold, silver, and energy. This commodity exchange was formed in 1848 and has added the exchange of electronics in recent years. This new addition is important to note for investors conducting online commodity trading.

3)         New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) – This exchange was established as the first commodity exchange in the U.S. It can trade currency pairs, coffee, cotton, sugar, cocoa, frozen orange juice and many other agricultural items. It is of course located in New York City.

4)         Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) – This exchange has been in business for over one hundred years and is another major exchange located in Chicago. The main commodities traded on this exchange are hogs, pork-bellies, lumber, milk, live and feeder cattle, fertilizer and butter. Now it serves as a marketplace for interest rate, foreign exchange trading, single-stock futures, and stock index. It also trades the weather derivatives that speculate on the weather anywhere in the world!

As you can see, each of the above markets specializes in certain commodities. It is important to note before conducting online commodity trading, that not only do they specialize in certain kinds of trades, but there are some exchanges that will trade in a wide variety of products also.  If you are interested in online commodity trading, you should also know that there are other exchanges outside of the U.S. These include exchanges located in London and in Japan.

When participating in online commodity trading it is important to note that commodities can be traded not only in the form of futures (futures trading) but also can be traded on spot markets. Spot markets are those in which the commodity is traded immediately in exchange for cash or another type of good. This can include goods in the form of ounces of gold or barrels of oil. Most commodities trading is done in the form of futures or options trading, however. Continue to do research on commodities and futures so that you can be successful when you conduct online commodity trading!

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