WHAT IS COMMODITY TRADING?

Commodities are generally physical, natural products which are consumed by people, for example coffee or orange juice, or used in industries like farming or mining, for example wheat or crude oil.

Some Commodities have intrinsic value based on their scarcity and difficulty in extracting or mining, this includes mainly metals like gold, silver and platinum.

Commodity prices are sensitive to moves in the value of the US dollar and can be influenced by a range of factors like:

• Fluctuations in supply and demand
• Poor harvests 
• Natural disasters
• Wars and conflict
• Miner's strikes
• Trade tariff and regulations
• Big economic events

When it comes to Commodity trading, these natural assets are grouped into three main categories; metals, softs and energy.

Which Commodity can I trade?

Let’s start with perhaps the most widely understood Commodity group, metals.
Metals are sometimes referred to as “hard” Commodities as these physical assets are generally mined out of the ground and include precious and semi-precious metals.

This group also includes other non-precious metals which are used primarily in industrial consumption and development.

Some of the metal markets that you can trade as a CFD or spread bet include:

• Copper
• Gold 
• Palladium
• Platinum
• Silver

Energy markets make up the second biggest group of Commodities and these assets include products such as oil, natural gas and crude oil.

The energy markets are heavily traded as they have a particularly large influence on the global economy, think of how many supplementary industries and companies rely on petrol to drive business; everything from transport to farming and industrial development.

Energy markets can be volatile, especially in times of political uncertainty, and are particularly sensitive to shifts in supply and demand.

Some of the energy markets you can trade as a CFD or spread bet include:

• Brent Crude Oil
• Natural Gas
• Nymex Oil

The final group that makes up the Commodity markets is softs, sometimes called “agriculturals” due to their importance in the farming sector.

These are primarily consumable physical assets, which have been grown or bred as products or commodities that are consumed by people and animals or used as raw materials by businesses.

The soft Commodity market is sensitive to global changes in supply and demand as well as things like natural disasters (which can impact crops and herds) and seasonal demand.

The soft Commodity markets available to trade at ETX as a spread bet include:

• Corn
• Cotton
• Cocoa
• Orange Juice
• Coffee
• Sugar
• Soybean
• Wheat

What are some of the biggest Commodity market exchanges?

Commodities are traded on big, specialist global exchanges that help to regulate and track supply and demand.

Some of the more famous exchanges are the London Metal Exchange, Chicago Board of Trade, NYMEX, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Dubai Mercantile Exchange and Australian Securities Exchange.