Britannica Money (2024)

commodity trade, the international trade in primary goods. Such goods are raw or partly refined materials whose value mainly reflects the costs of finding, gathering, or harvesting them; they are traded for processing or incorporation into final goods. Examples include crude oil, cotton, rubber, grains, and metals and other minerals.

Manufactured products, such as machinery and clothing, on the other hand, comprise products whose value reflects largely the cost of manufacturing processes. Such manufacturing processes contribute relatively little to the value of primary goods, which undergo little processing before they are traded.

Commodities and commodity markets are terms used as synonyms for primary goods and the markets in such goods.

Primary commodity markets

Trade in primary goods may take the form of a normal exchange of goods for money as in any everyday transaction (referred to technically as trade in “actuals”), or it may be conducted by means of futures contracts. A futures contract is an agreement to deliver or receive a certain quantity of a commodity at an agreed price at some stated time in the future. Trade in actuals has declined considerably and in many cases (such as the Liverpool markets in cotton and grain) has even come to a halt.

Operation of the market

The great bulk of commodity trading is in contracts for future delivery. The purpose of trading in futures is either to insure against the risk of price changes (hedging) or to make a profit by speculating on the price trend. If a speculator believes that prices will rise, he buys a futures contract and sells it when he wishes (e.g., at a more distant delivery date). The speculator either gains (if prices have risen) or loses (if they have fallen), the difference being due to the change in price.

“Hedging” means the offsetting of commitments in the market in actuals by futures contracts. A producer who buys a commodity at spot (current) prices but does not normally resell until three months later can insure himself against a decline in prices by selling futures: if prices fall he loses on his inventories but can purchase at a lower price; if prices rise he gains on his inventories but loses on his futures sales. Since price movements in the actuals market and the futures market are closely related, the loss (or gain) in actual transactions will normally be offset by a comparable gain (or loss) in the futures market.

The operation of futures markets requires commodities of uniform quality grades in order that transactions may take place without the buyer having to inspect the commodities themselves. This explains why there is no futures market, for example, in tobacco, which varies too much in quality. A steady, unfluctuating supply also is needed; this is referred to technically as “low elasticity of supply,” meaning that the amount of a commodity that producers supply to the market is not much affected by the price at which they are able to sell the commodity. If supply could be adjusted relatively quickly to changes in demand, speculation would become too difficult and risky because exceptionally high or low prices, from which speculators are able to profit, are eliminated as soon as supply is adjusted. Monopolistic control of demand and supply is also unfavourable to the operation of a futures market because price is subject to a large extent to the control of the monopolist and is thus unlikely to fluctuate sufficiently to provide the speculator with an opportunity for making profits. There is, for example, no market in diamonds, because there is only one marketing cooperative. In 1966 the London market in shellac ceased to function after the Indian government applied control of exporters’ prices at the source.

Before World War II London was the centre of international trade in primary goods, but New York City has become at least as important. It is in these two cities that the international prices of many primary products are determined. Although New York often has the bigger market, many producers prefer the London market because of the large fluctuations in local demand in the United States that influence New York market prices. In some cases international commodity agreements have reduced the significance of certain commodity markets.

There are markets in both New York and London for numerous primary goods, including cotton, copper, cocoa, sugar, rubber, coffee, wool and wooltops, tin, silver, and wheat. Tea, wool, and furs are auctioned in London, but in the case of many other commodities, auctions have been superseded by private sales. In London the metal market is much more a “spot” or delivery market than other futures markets. Many countries have their own markets: Australia for wool, Sri Lanka and India for tea, and Malaysia for rubber and tin.