Wednesday, February 20, 2008

What are Commodities?

The terms “commodities” and “futures” are often used to describe commodity trading or futures trading. You can think of them as generic terms to describe the markets. It is similar to the way “stocks” and “equities” are used when investors talk about the stock market. To be more specific, this is what they really mean: Commodities are the actual physical goods like corn, soybeans, gold, crude oil, etc. Futures are contracts of commodities that are traded at a futures exchange like the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). Futures contracts have expanded beyond just commodities; now there are futures contracts on financial markets like the S&P 500, t-notes, currencies and many others.

Futures Contract: December 2007 Corn, which is a contract of 5,000 bushels of corn that trades at the Chicago Board of Trade with a contract expiring in December 2007.

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