Crude Oil and Commodities Trading

Bulk commodities refer to material commodities that can enter the field of circulation, but are not in retail links, have commodity attributes and are used for industrial and agricultural production and consumption. In the financial investment market, bulk commodities refer to homogeneous, tradable commodities that are widely used as basic industrial raw materials, such as crude oil, non-ferrous metals, steel, agricultural products, iron ore, coal, etc. Historically, commodity trading has been in the form of physical trading, but since modern times, commodities have mostly been electronically traded. Commodities can be traded in many forms. Futures contracts are one of the most common and popular forms of commodity trading. In addition, stocks and ETFs can also be used to trade commodities.

Commodity exchanges are physical or virtual markets for buying and selling commodities. There are about 50 major commodity markets in the world today, and these markets facilitate the trading of about 100 commodities. Commodities can be divided into two categories: hard and soft. Hard commodities are often natural resources that must often be mined or extracted, such as gold, rubber, and crude oil; soft commodities are agricultural products or livestock.

The main players in the commodity market are producers, industrial end users, traders and speculators. The world’s major commodity exchanges mainly include Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), London Metal Exchange, Japan Commodity Exchange, Shanghai Commodity Exchange, Australian Commodity Exchange, etc.