Commodity Investment

Details

Category: Investment Type

Commodity investment, organized invests exchange in which standardized, graded products are bought and sold. Worldwide, there are 48 major commodity exchanges that trade over 96 commodities, ranging from wheat and cotton to silver and oil. Most trading is done in futures contracts, that is, agreements to deliver goods at a set time in the future for a price established at the time of the agreement. Futures trading allow both hedging to protect against serious losses in a declining market and speculation for gain in a rising market. For example, a seller may sign a contract agreeing to deliver grain in two months at a set price. If the grain market declines at the end of two months, the seller will still get the higher price quoted in the futures contract. If the market rises, however, speculators buying grain stand to profit by paying the lower contract price for the grain and reselling it at the higher market price.

Commodity investment is invested where raw or primary products are exchanged. These raw commodities are traded on regulated commodities exchanges, in which they are bought and sold in standardized contracts. This article focuses on the history and current debates regarding global commodity markets. It covers physical product (food, metals, and electricity) markets but not the ways that services, including those of governments, nor investment, nor debt, can be seen as a commodity. Articles on reinsurance markets, stock markets, bond markets and currency markets cover those concerns separately and in more depth. One focus of this article is the relationship between simple commodity money and the more complex instruments offered in the commodity markets.

Commodity money and commodity investment in a crude early form are believed to have originated in Sumer where small baked clay tokens in the shape of sheep or goats were used in trade. Sealed in clay vessels with a certain number of such tokens, with that number written on the outside, they represented a promise to deliver that number. This made them a form of commodity money - more than an I.O.U. but less than a guarantee by a nation-state or bank. However, they were also known to contain promises of time and date of delivery - this made them like a modern futures contract. Regardless of the details, it was only possible to verify the number of tokens inside by shaking the vessel or by breaking it, at which point the number or terms written on the outside became subject to doubt. Eventually the tokens disappeared, but the contracts remained on flat tablets. This represented the first system of commodity accounting.