- commodity
- An article of commerce or a product that can be used for commerce. In a narrow sense, products traded on an authorized commodity exchange. The types of commodities include agricultural products, metals, petroleum, foreign currencies, and financial instruments and index, to name a few. Chicago Board of Trade glossary————A good or item of trade or commerce. Goods tradable on an exchange, such as corn, gold, or hogs, as distinguished from instruments or other intangibles like T-Bills or stock indexes. The CENTER ONLINE Futures Glossary————A commodity is food, metal, or another fixed physical substance that investors buy or sell, usually via futures contracts. Bloomberg Financial Dictionary————The underlying instrument upon which a futures contract is based. Chicago Mercantile Exchange Glossary
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1. FINANCE a product that can be sold to make a profit, especially one in its basic form before it has been used or changed in an industrial process. Examples of commodities are farm products and metals:• The company trades worldwide, buying and selling basic commodities such as timber, coal and cement.
• Rice is the country's principle export commodity.
ˌcyclical comˈmodity FINANCEa commodity whose price rises and falls by large amounts during periods of fast and slow economic growthˌhard comˈmodity FINANCEmaterials such as metals, chemicals, and oil that are traded in theCommodities Marketsˌphysical comˈmodity FINANCEan actual commodity that is to be delivered, rather than one in financial trading where the trader does not take delivery:• Most futures contracts are canceled out by opposing trades, so futures traders rarely take delivery of a physical commodity.
ˌsoft comˈmodity FINANCEgoods such as sugar, coffee, cotton, and grains that are traded in theCommodities Markets:• Soft commodities, in particular coffee, tea, cocoa and cotton are some of the most important commodities in international trade
2. also comˈmodity ˌproduct MARKETING a product or service that is difficult to show as being different from similar products or services offered by competitors:• PCs have become commodities.
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A natural raw material used as a foodstuff or in manufacturing. Classified in the following groups:- oil and gas- metals- grains and oilseeds- soft commodities such as sugar, cocoa, coffee and tea- plantation crops such as rubber and palmoil; cotton and wool. Exchange-traded commodities are quoted in specific lots of a specific quality for specified delivery, and usually also trade in forward, futures and options contracts. Commodities traded outside organized exchanges usually change hands by direct contact between individual producers and individual end-users. The contracts are tailor-made for each deal and are often signed for a long-term continuing supply.* * *
commodity UK US /kəˈmɒdəti/ noun [C]► STOCK MARKET, FINANCE a substance or a product that can be traded in large quantities, such as oil, metals, grain, coffee, etc.: »One big commodity that Canada exports is oil.
»Higher commodities prices boosted first-quarter profits.
»agricultural commodities
► FINANCE a financial product that can be traded: »Returning barren fields to their natural state as wetlands creates a host of ""wetland mitigation credits,"" a commodity the company plans to sell.
► NATURAL RESOURCES a thing or a quality that is useful: »Water is a very scarce commodity in the region.
»Fluency in Arabic is a valuable commodity in a job market desperate for Arabic translators.
Financial and business terms. 2012.
