Handbook of Multi-Commodity Markets and Products


Book Description

Handbook of Multi-Commodity Markets and ProductsOver recent decades, the marketplace has seen an increasing integration, not only among different types of commodity markets such as energy, agricultural, and metals, but also with financial markets. This trend raises important questions about how to identify and analyse opportunities in and manage risks of commodity products. The Handbook of Multi-Commodity Markets and Products offers traders, commodity brokers, and other professionals a practical and comprehensive manual that covers market structure and functioning, as well as the practice of trading across a wide range of commodity markets and products. Written in non-technical language, this important resource includes the information needed to begin to master the complexities of and to operate successfully in today’s challenging and fluctuating commodity marketplace. Designed as a practical practitioner-orientated resource, the book includes a detailed overview of key markets – oil, coal, electricity, emissions, weather, industrial metals, freight, agricultural and foreign exchange – and contains a set of tools for analysing, pricing and managing risk for the individual markets. Market features and the main functioning rules of the markets in question are presented, along with the structure of basic financial products and standardised deals. A range of vital topics such as stochastic and econometric modelling, market structure analysis, contract engineering, as well as risk assessment and management are presented and discussed in detail with illustrative examples to commodity markets. The authors showcase how to structure and manage both simple and more complex multi-commodity deals. Addressing the issues of profit-making and risk management, the book reveals how to exploit pay-off profiles and trading strategies on a diversified set of commodity prices. In addition, the book explores how to price energy products and other commodities belonging to markets segmented across specific structural features. The Handbook of Multi-Commodity Markets and Products includes a wealth of proven methods and useful models that can be selected and developed in order to make appropriate estimations of the future evolution of prices and appropriate valuations of products. The authors additionally explore market risk issues and what measures of risk should be adopted for the purpose of accurately assessing exposure from multi-commodity portfolios. This vital resource offers the models, tools, strategies and general information commodity brokers and other professionals need to succeed in today’s highly competitive marketplace.




Principles of Commodity Economics and Finance


Book Description

A rigorous but practical introduction to the economic, financial, and political principles underlying commodity markets. Commodities have become one of the fastest growing asset classes of the last decade and the object of increasing attention from investors, scholars, and policy makers. Yet existing treatments of the topic are either too theoretical, ignoring practical realities, or largely narrative and nonrigorous. This book bridges the gap, striking a balance between theory and practice. It offers a solid foundation in the economic, financial, and political principles underlying commodities markets. The book, which grows out of courses taught by the author at Columbia and Johns Hopkins, can be used by graduate students in economics, finance, and public policy, or as a conceptual reference for practitioners. After an introduction to basic concepts and a review of the various types of commodities—energy, metals, agricultural products—the book delves into the economic and financial dynamics of commodity markets, with a particular focus on energy. The text covers fundamental demand and supply for resources, the mechanics behind commodity financial markets, and how they motivate investment decisions around both physical and financial portfolio exposure to commodities, and the evolving political and regulatory landscape for commodity markets. Additional special topics include geopolitics, financial regulation, and electricity markets. The book is divided into thematic modules that progress in complexity. Text boxes offer additional, related material, and numerous charts and graphs provide further insight into important concepts.




Commodity Prices and Markets


Book Description

Fluctuations of commodity prices, most notably of oil, capture considerable attention and have been tied to important economic effects. This book advances our understanding of the consequences of these fluctuations, providing both general analysis and a particular focus on the countries of the Pacific Rim.




Commodity Exchanges


Book Description

Commodities are basic goods used in commerce and are most often used as inputs in the production of other semi-finished or finished materials. They are very important products in our lives today and constitute non-negligible sources of income for many countries. This book serves as a guide to the marketing of these goods and provides scholars and commodity market participants with useful concepts, tools and guidelines to better organize and operate commodities exchanges.




Commodity Policies


Book Description

Originally published in 1987, this book discusses the key issues concerned with primary commodity trade worldwide. Primary commodities are crucially important for many developing countries because very often exports in just one or two primary commodities form the sole source of income for a developing country. Developing countries need above all stability in primary commodities trade to guarantee their future development. This book examines patterns of trade, changing demand and the effects of fluctuations in spot and futures markets. It analyses theories put forward to explain the problems and it reviews the research of the many international organisations which are concerned with the problems. It examines the international agreements and bodies which have been set up to stabilise trade and assesses the performance of these agreements and organisations.




United States Commodity Policies


Book Description




Storage and Commodity Markets


Book Description

This book deals with the capability to store surplus commodities and the impact of stockpiles on prices and production.







Commodity and Resource Policies in Agricultural Systems


Book Description

Agricultural, natural resource, and environmental problems are becom ing increasingly interdependent. For example, soil erosion is largely determined by agricultural land use. Both water use and water con tamination depend on land use and technology choice in agriculture. In many areas, the fertilizers and pesticides used in agriculture are ma jor pollutants of ground and surface water, having adverse effects on drinking water and fisheries. Agricultural pollutants such as pesticides also produce adverse health effects for agricultural workers and the consuming public. On the other hand, the availability of water resources and the value of competing land uses influence agricultural production. Additionally, regional air quality problems may affect crops and global environmental trends may have long-term implica tions for farming. Agriculture, natural resources and environmental quality are all heavily regulated in the U. S. , but they are done so by a vast array of competing or unrelated agencies within the U. S. Departments of Agriculture, Interior, and Commerce, the Environmental Protection Agency; and numerous state agencies. Considering the large number of bureaucratically remote public agencies involved and the pervasive in terdependencies between agriculture, natural resources and the environ ment, policies develop which are at best uncoordinated and at worst conflicting and counterproductive. These policies have become sources of controversy as different interest groups struggle to affect their im plementation, as different agencies have fought for administrative con trol and as legislative bodies have attempted to enact piecemeal changes.




Energy Transition Metals


Book Description

The energy transition requires substantial amounts of metals such as copper, nickel, cobalt and lithium. Are these metals a key bottleneck? We identify metal-specific demand shocks, estimate supply elasticities and pin down the price impact of the energy transition in a structural scenario analysis. Metal prices would reach historical peaks for an unprecedented, sustained period in a net-zero emissions scenario. The total value of metals production would rise more than four-fold for the period 2021 to 2040, rivaling the total value of crude oil production. Metals are a potentially important input into integrated assessments models of climate change.